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.

Julia Jackson is reading Cooper Not Out by Justin Smith

I’ve read many a cricket book in my lifetime, from the Iceman’s Captain’s Diaries right through to Duncan Hamilton’s erudite biography of cricket laureate Neville Cardus, but I haven’t read a cricket book as downright fun as Cooper Not Out.

Here, Justin Smith transports us back to the heady days of summer 84/85 and the Windies’ tour of Australia (bad memories for some, I’m sure), instead imagining that local bobby and Penguin Hill’s greatest opener Roy ‘Sarge’ Cooper is selected for the Third Test after a journo is steered towards his amazing statistic: he’s never been out!

This book is exactly what it says it is: a feel good, charming story about an unlikely hero, full of scones and delightful characters.

Lian Hingee is reading Grown Ups by Marian Keyes

I just finished reading my very first Marian Keyes novel, and I don’t know what I expected – something gentle and vaguely fuzzy… the literary equivalent of a photo of roses taken with soft focus – but it definitely wasn’t that.

Grown Ups is the story of the big, mixed-up Casey clan: three brothers, three wives, and the various children that make up one close-knit family. There’s a lot of love, and just as many secrets, but it’s not until one of them receives a bonk on the head and in her concussed state starts spilling truth bombs at the dinner table that the whole things starts to come unravelled.

More than anything, Grown Ups reminded me of Liane Moriarty’s terrific novels, except with less murders; instead Keyes is more interested in the more mundane crimes we commit upon our selves and those we love: prejudice, jealousy, imposter syndrome, addiction, bulimia, infidelity, gaslighting. That makes it sound like a depressing slog, but actually it’s anything but. It’s witty and laugh-out-loud funny, with dialogue you want to read aloud and settings you’d like to visit for yourself (and practically do, Keyes’ ability to draw the reader into a setting is remarkable). The characters are multi-faceted, flawed, and erratic as real people, and as a fellow middle-aged person who’s still waiting to feel like a grown-up, I felt entirely at home amongst them. Marian Keyes is one of the world’s most successful writers. It’s easy to see why.

Aurelia Orr is reading Lust by Roald Dahl

I knew since I was very young how fantastically fantastical Dahl’s writing could be, transporting me to bizarre, wondrous places with even curiouser characters that make the impossible somehow possible.

Lust – though still fantastic – is quite different kind of book and interesting to read as an adult. What awes me about Lust is how Dahl explores the base, animalistic desire within us all. He shifts the focus away from the lighter side of lust – the thrill and skipping heartbeats of passion – to go further and uncover the complicated clandestine truth of how far a person will go to fulfill their deepest and darkest cravings.

Through exquisite writing and striking imagery, we are presented with the idea that, despite the implicit guidelines and conducts in regards to sex in modern society, there will always be the possibility of uncontrolled desire compelling us to succumb to impulse with little regard to anything else. This is truly the peak of Dahl’s talented writing.