Each week we bring you a sample of the books we’re reading, the films we’re watching, the television shows we’re hooked on, or the music we’re loving.

Chris Somerville is reading The Golden State by Lydia Kiesling

I’ve been in a real reading slump lately, for a variety of reasons I’m sure, but I mostly blame being stuck in our small apartment in lockdown with our 18-month-old child. I can recall a few times when I’ve had a novel catch my attention when it looks like I didn’t have any: Vendela Vida’s The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty, A.M. Homes’s This Book Will Save Your Life. This time around it’s Lydia Kiesling’s The Golden State, a funny and tense novel set over a few weeks which begins with a young woman calling in sick to her job and taking her young daughter to her empty family mobile home. This is one of those enjoyable books that you wish had taken off more when it was released last year. People are wrong sometimes.

Amanda Rayner is reading A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

I am about a third of a way through A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes; one of the shortlisted books for the 2020 Women’s Prize. A retelling of the Trojan war from the perspective of the females involved, I am already impressed. One of the strengths here is the range of characters Haynes presents; from the muse of epic poetry Calliope, the widow of Trojan Prince Hector (Andromache) and the Amazonian Queen Penthesilea. I have already cried and surprisingly laughed (it is obvious a number of the women have a dislike for Helen of Troy!) With A Thousand Ships, Haynes is not just giving us these points of view for the sake of it, she is getting readers to recognise and rethink the role of women in Homer’s Iliad.

Bronte Coates is reading How to Write the Soundtrack to Your Life by Fiona Hardy (available September)

Fiona Hardy has followed up her excellent 2019 children’s fiction debut, How to Make a Movie in Twelve Days, with another utterly charming crossover tale in How to Write the Soundtrack to Your Life. Following (secretly) aspiring songwriter Murphy’s quest to find out who is stealing her songs, this is a funny and heartfelt story about learning to find your voice and the value of true friendship. Hardy skilfully depicts an ensemble cast without ever making any single character feel like a cut-out, and her exploration of difficult themes, including mental illness in Murphy’s family, feels gentle and authentic. She’s also very funny, and I think perhaps a genius when it comes to writing dialogue. Plus, as with Hardy’s first book, there’s an excellent non-fiction section at the novel’s end that may inspire home music-making projects. Look out for this one in September for keeping your kids entertained.