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 Gordon is reading Wendy Whiteley and the Secret Garden by Janet Hawley

If you enjoy the romance of dappled light, the glory of mixed leaves and the sanctuary that a garden can provide, Wendy Whiteley and the Secret Garden is for you.

I simply cannot get enough of this book. It is the most glorious release of the year. The photos of Wendy’s garden, combined with the images from Brett’s collection give the book a sense of lushness not seen often enough in a gardening book. The story is deeply moving – a garden created from a rubbish tip – and touches on big themes such as the sadness of losing loved ones. Ultimately, here is a book about a woman taking control of her environment and allowing something to grow where before there was only dust.

Ed. note: Wendy Whiteley and the Secret Garden will be released on 23 September, and is available for pre-order now.

Chris Somerville is reading Here by Richard McGuire

The other night, while waiting for the Liberal party to oust its leader, I picked up and read the entirety of Richard McGuire’s Here to distract myself. At first it was hard to tell what was happening and whether there was an actual plot (there is, but events are scattered and sometimes linked to create multiple narrative strands), but by the final page, the story had became something quite moving and emotional, reaching the same heights that great art can.

Focusing on a single location, the one corner of a room, we get glimpses of what’s happened in this one spot over the years. What McGuire captures so well in this graphic novel are mostly small exchanges: a joke told in the 1980’s, a bird flying into the room in the 60’s, people playing a board game 100 years in the future. These exchanges are at once mundane and resonating. The limiting of location in Here is the real trick; by showing us so little McGuire manages to reveal so much. This is undoubtedly a book that will offer more upon re-read.

Nina Kenwood is reading Barbara the Slut and Other People by Lauren Holmes

This has been a terrific year for short story collections by women. I’ve read and loved Hot Little Hands by Abigail Ulman, Six Bedrooms by Tegan Bennett Daylight and Single, Carefree, Mellow by Katherine Heiny (one of my absolute favourite books of the year.) I’m pleased to say I can now add Barbara the Slut and Other People to my highly recommended list.

This is a fresh, funny and very contemporary collection. The stories are unfussy and understated slices of life. Like all collections, some stories are stronger than others – ‘Desert Hearts’ left me rather unmoved, but the opening story of the collection, ‘How Am I Supposed to Talk to You?’, is one of my favourites and it broke my heart a little. Holmes is funny, and her relaxed style of writing has really grown on me. I am thoroughly enjoying this book, and looking forward to finishing it over the weekend.

Alan Vaarwerk is reading Creating Cities by Marcus Westbury

In a couple of weeks I’m going to Newcastle for the National Young Writers Festival, part of This Is Not Art. One of my favourite things about the festival is how the regional, historically industrial city opens itself up to artists and creative types from all over Australia, with shopfronts, pubs and even carparks converted into festival venues. Marcus Westbury, a Newcastle native and a founder of This Is Not Art, also founded Renew Newcastle, an urban renewal scheme that takes abandoned or neglected urban spaces and repurposes them for artists and cultural projects. The program has been hugely successful and has spread to cities and towns across the country.

Creating Cities is the story of that success and a treatise on how communities can reclaim their public spaces from developers, bureaucracy and commerce – “a plea to rediscover the possibilities of people in a world designed around capital”. As a minor urbanism buff I’ve been a fan of Westbury’s writing on public space and culture ever since referencing a blog post of his in my honours thesis and I can’t wait to dive into Creating Cities. Coming from a regional town whose last bookshop has just closed down, Westbury’s strategies for creative renewal are inspiring, realistic and highly readable.

Bronte Coates is reading Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright

In my first year of uni, I’d visited a Scientology centre with the vague idea of writing an article about it. I was shown a video about the organisation’s work around the world, and then I was audited where I was told that events in my past were causing me problems now. I remember thinking to myself, “Well, of course.” I was encouraged to sign up for a further course and declined. The experience was strange and uncomfortable, but I certainly didn’t feel unduly pressured to go further. I never ended up writing an article, probably because I have no instinct for journalism.

I suspect this dimly-remembered experience is why Lawrence Wright’s investigation into the religion shocked me so much. More than shocked me – his exhaustively researched and thrilling work of non-fiction chilled me. The story of how Scientology came to be what it is today, is fascinating, bizarre, and frequently horrific. One of the best books I’ve read all year.