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.

Alan Vaarwerk is reading Melbourne literary journal Kill Your Darlings

I really should be used to it by now, but I’m constantly blown away by the breadth and quality of writing on display in Kill Your Darlings.

In their most recent issue, Gillian Terzis’ exploration of online grief and hashtag activism is thoughtful and resonant as it explores the politics and performative nature of expressing grief on social media, particularly when it comes to violence against women. Omar Sakr is unflinching and passionate in his defence of creative writing programs against the ‘starving artist’ trope. Jessica Au’s short story ‘Those Who Know We Are Here’ is a beautifully written and melancholy meditation on what it means to travel.

I’ve also started reading Tegan Bennett Daylight’s Six Bedrooms – it’s been universally loved at Readings and so far I’m loving it too.

Stella Charls is reading Was She Pretty? by Leanne Shapton

My plan for this year was to try to finish what I start, inspired by my colleague Nina’s brilliant post: Why you should keep track of everything you read. Unfortunately, I haven’t really succeeded. My list of what I’ve finished in 2015 doesn’t even reach double figures… But recently, I finished a book in a single tram ride! And it was a delight. Leanne Shapton’s Was She Pretty? is laugh-out-loud-funny, as well as moving.

Shapton is a writer and illustrator, responsible for beautiful publications that test the boundaries of what a book can be. Her memoir, Swimming Studies, and the recent anthology Shapton edited with Heidi Julavits and Shelia Heti, Women In Clothes, are both truly beautiful objects and also make for fascinating reading.

In Was She Pretty? Shapton grapples with the emotional legacy of past relationships, obsessing over exes and how knowledge of them (or lack thereof) can bring out the most jealous versions of ourselves. It’s a subversive catalogue of ex-girlfriends, with pithy descriptors on one page (Jean-Paul’s ex-girlfriend, Eugénie, for example, could ‘soft-boil an egg, make fresh coffee and toast a baguette all in the time it took her to roll a cigarette’) accompanied by raw, inky portraits on the other.

Like Alan, I’m also loving the new issue of Kill Your Darlings (especially the lead feature – Gillian Terzis’s remarkable essay on the ways we grieve publicly on social media) and I’m still working my way through the Sydney Writers Festival podcasts. The highlight so far has been Helen Garner’s ‘How Can We Write About Darkness’, which offers a compelling perspective from the author on her body of work, particularly Joe Cinque’s Consolation and This House of Grief.

Finally I’m getting prepared to see The End of the Tour at MIFF, as well as the accompanying Wheeler Centre panel session No Relation: The Impact, Imitators and Legacy of David Foster Wallace by getting stuck into Wallace’s body of work. I’ve just started Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, am planning on re-visiting Every Love Story is a Ghost Story and maybe I’ll squeeze in Infinite Jest?

Ann le Lievre is reading A Fortunate Age by Joanna Rakoff

Last weekend I was in the best of company. Joanna Rakoff’s debut novel A Fortunate Age was waiting, ready to distract me from the inclement Melbourne weather (well more than inclement, it was ghastly). Last year I had enjoyed Rakoff’s memoir My Salinger Year, so I was eager to visit her again, and over the space of two luxurious reading days, I joined a bunch of Jewish friends back in 1994, who had just graduated from Oberlin College, New York.

Rakoff takes us swiftly into the lives of these characters who, poised with their freshly-minted degrees to forge their dream careers, fall in love – and out of love too. There are six main characters, yes, and as you might imagine, the reader needs to pay close attention to the narrative and each of the character’s role in it. Rakoff takes us off on tangents, jumping across time and place as she develops the story. However, we are well-rewarded with our close reading.

I became an honorary member of this complex friendship circle (for the weekend at least) sharing their lives, loves and heartaches.

Chris Gordon is reading Prick with a Fork by Larissa Dubecki

Ohh, how fuzzy does your head become when full of a cold? This last week I’ve been laying low with a heavy head. There I am, curled up on the sofa with toasties and tea nearby as I watch season 2 of Nashville. What an utterly ridiculous joy this show is – essentially a soap opera with boot-scooting tunes. It’s perfect for the dark of winter.

But to be completely rid of those winter blues, I was fortunate enough to get an advanced copy of Larissa Dubecki’s Prick with a Fork. I loved this book in which Dubecki tells tales from her days of restaurant waiting with gleeful relish. I laughed out loud, often, and repeatedly read passages to my partner. Dubecki is good for the soul.

Nina Kenwood is reading Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee

I read Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman this week. You can read my thoughts about it here. If you can’t be bothered clicking and reading that, then I’ll summarise: mostly negative, and rather conflicted about its orgins. (But I still encourage everyone to read it and make up their own minds.) Like Ann above, I’m also now reading Joanna Rakoff’s A Fortunate Age, although I’ve only just started, so more on that next week (but so far: two thumbs up).

Finally, due to bad weather I’ve watched a bit of TV lately (okay, who am I kidding, I watch TV rain, hail or shine), and here are some recommendations for anyone looking for a chilly weekend binge watch: I loved and adored Orange Is The New Black‘s third season, particularly the second half, and most especially the final episode; I also loved and adored darkly funny British rom-com Catastrophe, which is only six episodes long and can be consumed in one delightful afternoon; and finally, I’ve started watching UnREAL and I think it’s going to be juicy and fascinating.