Each week we bring you a sample of the books we’re reading, the films and TV shows we’re watching, and the music we’re listening to.

Bronte Coates is reading The Boneless Mercies by April Genevieve Tucholke (available October)

Frey is the leader of a band of boneless mercies – women who roam the land and are hired to bring a merciful death to the sick and the old. It is gruelling work and Frey, raised on the heroic sagas of her people, yearns for glory. Together with her mercy sisters, she decides to put aside their old life and pursue a legendary monster instead. April Genevieve Tucholke has created an incredibly immersive world in this novel, one rich with magic and myth. Described as a genderbent retelling of Beowulf, The Boneless Mercies is a brilliant work of dark fantasy. It is fierce and feminist, drenched in violence, and utterly gripping.

Paul Goodman is reading The End by Karl Ove Knausgaard (translated by Don Bartlett & Martin Aitken)

Has Karl Ove Knausgaard’s The End – the finale to his My Struggle cycle – been worth the wait? From the first page everything I loved about the first five instalments came rushing back and I have to say I’m smitten all over again. This one deals with the fallout from the first book of the series, A Death in the Family, and leaves Knausgaard wrestling with the question of why he writes and how strong that conviction is when placed under the scrutiny of living, breathing people. The result is very much the same as his earlier works: he presents himself without frills but instead, with every wart and bad habit on his sleeve.

It’s endearing as much as it unbelievable that he’d write with this level of honesty about his closest friends and family. His prose is so focused and brilliant that even the most mundane activity, like paying for ice cream with a contactless card, reads like Proust biting into a madeleine. Whether or not you identify with Knausgaard as a person, it’s his observations that are universal, and this is disarming on every page. Reading Knausgaard is getting a sense of what it means to live, endeavouring to make sense of the endless stories that make up a life, and accepting what beauty there is, whether it comes from the natural world or within, a product of each of our minds. This is the most astonishing work I have ever read, and whilst it builds heavily on the great writers who came before him, he is steering the way in the twenty-first century.

The friend who recommended I read Knausgaard didn’t even bother trying to describe the work. ‘Just read it,’ he said. And I did. And when I recommend it to everyone I meet I say the same. This series defies definition. Please, please read it. It’s definitely worth the wait.

Ellen Cregan is reading The Scholar by Dervla McTiernan (available February 2019)

I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy of Dervla McTiernan’s forthcoming crime novel, The Scholar. I’m about halfway through and totally absorbed in the mystery. A young woman is found dead just outside of Galway University, in what police initially assume is a traffic accident. It quickly becomes apparent that the incident was anything but an accident. This is the second book that features DS Cormac Reilly, who we first met in McTiernan’s debut novel The Rúin. I think Reilly is a great protagonist for a crime novel – he has many of the features you might expect from a fictional detective, but there are multiple layers to his personality that McTiernan explores as the book progresses. This is a thrilling novel with lots of satisfying twists and turns, and will have you making wild guesses about what might happen next.

This book won’t be released until February of next year, but it’s certainly one to put in your diaries.

Paul Barr is listening to Cas by Lúnasa

It’s been 21 years since this leading Irish traditional band formed for an Australian tour. After taking a few years break from recording, Lúnasa have tried something a little different this time around by incorporating some high profile singers and Tim O'Brien and Natalie Merchant make wonderful contributions, while a couple of the other singers are less successful. As usual, it’s the tune sets that Lúnasa excel at – especially the flute and low whistle combinations. Their music blends new and traditional material brilliantly. New guitarist Ed Boyd (a former longtime member of the Celtic folk group Flook) is a welcome addition to the rhythm section. It’s great to hear from this band again.