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.

Bianca Looney is reading The Colour of the Sun by David Almond

A summer day. A young lad wandering free. Drifts of blazing poppies. Lying on rock in the sun. Wondering and dreaming at the aliveness of the world. The magical and the real all melting together.

This tale unfolds in a single day as 12-year-old Davie journeys through the countryside near his small town. As he walks he ponders the mystery of a local boy’s murder. Davie is also struggling to come to terms with the recent death of a parent. These two deaths are woven with the different people and places Davie connects with throughout the day.

I’ve read a few of Almond’s books – My Name is Mina, Skellig and A Song for Ella Grey – and they are all strange and lovely, and sometimes brutal. The Colour of the Sun is equally moving. This is a slow-building, almost allegorical tale in which the minutiae of an ordinary summer day take on extraordinary proportions. It reminded me of the wisdom portrayed in Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book. Almond’s story is similarly full of awe for the beautiful, weird world we live in. It is a hopeful, humane book and I am sure I will revisit it again.

Tracy Hwang is reading Amelia Westlake by Erin Gough

Sometimes a book comes along that doesn’t just entertain me, but also inspires me to look at the world differently. Erin Gough’s political comedy, Amelia Westlake is one such book. Gough provides an excellent representation for the LGBTQ+ community, as well as tackling the tough and timely topics of sexism, wealth divides and racism. Her novel is a playful, but powerful feminist romp that perfectly captures the Australian school life of young adults. The struggles of Gough’s characters, from fractured families, falling grades and messy relationships, feel authentic and relatable. This is such an important book and it’s undoubtedly one of my favourite YA books of the year.

Ed. note: Tracy is a member of our Readings Teen Advisory Board. Find out more

Ellen Cregan is reading The Pisces by Melissa Broder (available in July)

I’ve just finished reading Melissa Broder’s debut novel, The Pisces. The plot follows an academic in her late 30s through a bad breakup and into a string of depressing tinder dates, and eventually to a passionate relationship with a merman. Yes, a merman.

I had read Broder’s previous book, a collection of essays called So Sad Today, and it didn’t exactly hit the mark for me. While her novel does mirror the language and overall feel of her essays, I think her writing just appeals to me much more in a fictional iteration. Broder’s ability to write about smell is also incredible – her description of the scent of the merman’s tail will be burned into my brain for quite some time. I finished this book in one sitting. This is a very cleverly written novel – it is at once hilarious and disgusting, racy and melancholic. I loved it.

Bronte Coates is recommending two books this week

The Case of the Missing Men is one of my favourite graphic novels I’ve read this year. Created by two longtime friends, this is a fantastically creepy supernatural mystery which brings together teen detective stories and Twin Peaks. Artist Forbes drew inspiration from illustrations of popular pulp character such as Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, which gives the book the feel of an adventure manual. You can check out an excerpt here.

Last weekend I also read Patricia Lockwood’s bestselling family memoir of last year, Priestdaddy, while camping with my brother. And wow, this book is so good. Lockwood was a poet of cult following prior to the memoir’s publication and she’s a wildly inventive and screamingly funny writer. (I highly recommend her collection, Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals which includes her best-known poem, ‘Rape Joke’.) Lockwood grew up under the rein of her father – a ‘gun-toting, guitar-riffing, frequently semi-naked’ Catholic priest – and in this memoir, she digs into her bizarre childhood as she reckons with the dark side of her religious upbringing. She does a brilliant job of depicting the complex relationship she has with her past and family, and allows space for the complicated, sometimes contradictory feelings that arise. It’s also incredibly hilarious. Definitely one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read.