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.

Mark Rubbo is reading Late in the Day by Tessa Hadley

I’ve been reading Tessa Hadley’s Late in the Day. Two middle-class couples – a teacher, an artist, a gallery owner and a dilettante – are inseparable. Add in death, adultery, fame, and angst and you might get a saucy romp – but you don’t. Instead, Hadley skewers these characters and creates a fascinating world that you care very much about.

Chris Gordon is reading City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert (available 31 May)

Over the weekend I finished a reading copy of City of Girls and I loved it. What a treat to read about a satisfied woman who is not married, who doesn’t have a child, who is fully in charge of her own life and is capable, sexy, strong and kind. More of that please! We need more narratives that address happiness from within without compromise and without – praise the lord – sentimental twaddle. Elizabeth Gilbert’s writing is so agile and elusive and completely beguiling; there was a moment in my reading when I could feel the tide turn: when I knew that I now have to stay put and finish the damn book at the expense of other activities. A complete joy.

Laura Wilson is reading Making Friends with Alice Dyson by Poppy Nwosu

This is a wonderful coming-of-age story that was incredibly realistic, with writing that was very satisfying and characters full of so much depth. It was such an enjoyable and heartfelt read.

Ed. note: Laura is a member of our current Readings Teen Advisory Board.

Jackie Tang is reading The I Wonder Bookstore by Shinsuke Yoshitake

I’ve been greatly enjoying this delightful picture book for older readers in the past week. Inside, we’re introduced to the I Wonder Bookstore, where customers ask the owner questions about books that all begin with ‘I wonder… ’ – some of them mundane and others more fanciful (‘I wonder if you have any books about how to grow a tree that writer books’). The owner (almost) always fills their requests and often in magical ways.

Shinsuke Yoshitake captured my heart with his previous books It Might Be an Apple and Can I Build Another Me?. He’s like the Jorge Luis Borges of picture books – creating these whimsical, fabulist scenarios that make you see the world around you differently, all conveyed with a slightly mischievous tone. That charm is carried over to this new book beautifully, and how satisfying that readers can savour his visual wit over 100-plus pages here, instead of the usual 32 or 48.

I highly recommend this book to any bibliophiles, fans of Tom Gauld or Edward Gorey, or readers who want to impress on the children in their lives the transportive magic of reading and books.