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.

Ellen Cregan is reading Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend

This week I’ve been reading Jessica Townsend’s hotly anticipated children’s fiction book. I don’t often get around to reading middle fiction, so when I do, the book has to be extra special, and this book is definitely extra special.

Morrigan Crow is an excellent protagonist – despite the curse that has followed her all 11 years of her life, she is generous, caring and curious. Townsend has written a cast of characters who are believable yet still fabulously whacky (I felt a particular connection of Fenestra the gigantic, sassy, talking cat). Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow truly feels like a beautiful amalgamation of every book I loved as a child. I haven’t felt this way about reading a book since I first picked up a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone as a tiny primary school student – the wonder and magic are all-consuming, and I will never forget Morrigan or Jupiter or Hawthorne or any of the other characters.

This is a tricky book to describe in detail to other people. I tried to tell some friends about it over the weekend, and they looked at me like my brain had fallen out of my ear. So I won’t do that here – all I’ll say is trust me, and read it yourself.

Kara Nicholson is reading Mullumbimby by Melissa Lucashenko

I recently saw Melissa Lucashenko on the panel of a Melbourne Writers Festival event titled ‘Feminist Lit: Then & Now’. She was challenging and inspiring, and ensured the conversation was genuinely thought-provoking. After listening to what she had to say about feminist writing and the lack of Aboriginal representation in Australian literature I knew I needed to read Mullumbimby. By coincidence I was heading up to the northern rivers region of NSW where the book is set so I started reading it on the beach by the Bruns river. The experience of reading about connection to country and lands rights in the very place Lucashenko was describing was incredibly moving and humbling. This is an amazing book that manages to be funny, pragmatic, spiritual and tender. It definitely should have won more awards and it will now be among my top recommendations for Australian fiction.

Jo Case is listening to Sleep Well Beast by The National

When I was a teenager, I was horrified at the way my parents rarely listened to music – and when they did, it was always their favourite old records (Simon and Garfunkel, Leonard Cohen, The Beatles).

‘I’m never going to be like that,’ I told myself. But I can date my plummeting attention to new music to the summer of 1998/99, when I gave up the Hole tickets I got for my birthday because I was pregnant. I can count the new musical discoveries I’ve made since on my fingers. But most of them have been through Readings, and paying attention to what the music staff here are recommending.

This year – this month, in fact – I’ve been listening to The National’s new album, Sleep Well Beast. I can review a book (at least adequately) in my sleep, but I can’t articulate the ‘what’ or ‘why’ of my responses to music because I struggle to identify the elements that come together to make it work. I told a musician friend this recently, and he told me that music is more visceral than I’m imagining: it’s about tone, about capturing and provoking emotions.

Sleep Well Beast is intrinsically melancholy and vaguely foreboding – a submerged sweetness in a gravelly voice. It’s a warm blanket on a cold night; it’s getting old but still feeling young. At least, that’s how it feels to me. And it’s available on blue vinyl!

Lian Hingee is reading Force of Nature by Jane Harper

Jane Harper’s award-winning debut, The Dry, was one of the best Australian crime novels that I’ve read in years and definitely one of my favourite books of 2016. Her highly anticipated follow-up takes federal investigator Aaron Falk away from the drought-stricken surroundings of his childhood home in Kiewarra, and transplants him into the Giralang ranges several hours outside of Melbourne where a corporate retreat has gone terribly wrong. Missing somewhere in the kilometres of unmapped wilderness is Alice Russell – an essential cog in one of Falk’s ongoing cases – and time is running out to find her alive.

Alternating between the circumstances leading up to Alice’s disappearance and Falk’s investigation, Force of Nature is an uneasy and atmospheric novel that’s quite different from its predecessor, but no less compelling. Like with The Dry, the unforgiving Australian terrain plays an important role in the narrative, and Harper’s evocative writing puts you right there amongst the eucalypts, the cold mountain air, and the perilous mountain terrain. Falk is a fascinating character and I also enjoyed meeting his unflappable partner Carmen. I’m already looking forward to the next instalment.

I’ve also been reading The Big Issue: Fiction Edition, which includes some great works from new and established writers. Included among the 14 stories is an eerie and frightening piece by Toni Jordan about a couple spiralling out of control on a mountain road (and perhaps, in life), a story about memory, nostalgia, and lost love from Anna Spargo-Ryan, and a tongue-in-cheek fable about the fallout from today’s tattoo craze. My favourite story is America’s Seventh-Richest Musician, which is a witty and thoughtful piece about fame and falling out of love from Readings’ own Fiona Hardy.