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.

Aurelia Orr is reading Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors

Reading Cleopatra and Frankenstein was like falling in love for the first time: you’re so blinded by the glamour and rose-coloured view of the world before you, you never expect the heartbreak to follow. Like Cleo and Frank, who fall so hard for each other they quickly marry before knowing one another properly, this book peeks behind the glamorous party scene of New York to reveal the aching loneliness each character masks. No one is as two-dimensional as they first appear, exposing every joy and pain, every trauma and desire, with a gut-wrenching yet alluring prose.

Like the queen Cleopatra, this book seduces you with its glittery beauty and effervescent charm. But like the mad scientist Frankenstein, it also shows how, depending on the influences of the people we surround ourselves with, we are either able to overcome the monster within us all or succumb to it.

Rosalind McClintock is reading Hovering by Rhett Davis

I felt compelled to pick up Hovering by debut author Rhett Davis, after reading Alison’s excellent review in the RM, and I am so glad I did. I enjoyed it immensely.

Davis is very clever in the way he plays with form, but I hasten to add it is in no way obnoxious. If you had told me that I’d find it a joy to read phone call transcripts, tracing data, text messages and news clippings interspersed with traditional narrative I’d have quietly rolled my eyes. But I did! I loved all the different ways that Davis showed how we communicate and are tracked by governments, companies and whoever else. While many of the characters have immersed themselves in tech, it is a book full of heart and well-drawn characters. He managed to make me believe a city that constantly rearranges itself could be a reality. I have told so many people about this book – in an equally rambling form - and they have all come back to me with a glowing review.

Gabrielle Williams is reading In Moonland by Miles Allinson

In Moonland by Miles Allinson was recommended to my son, who has in turn recommended it to me. I’m only about a third of the way in so far, and I’m really loving it.

It’s the story of a son, chasing the ghost of his father who committed suicide years earlier. Through reconnecting with his father’s friends, the son tries to piece together the man his father was (in all his charm and violence and absence), while at the same time neglecting his own wife and child who are ghostly figures in the background of his own story. I know there are three parts to this book, so I’m really interested to see where we go next.

Julia Jackson is tending the bar while reading Political Drinkmanship

Whatever your political stripe this book has you covered for whatever result might eventuate on 21 May! With tongue very firmly in cheek, Scotty from Marketing presents 20 election night cocktails for you to try, in the vein of a vintage Australian Women’s Weekly cookbook! Loads of fun!