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.

Bronte Coates is reading Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

When I read Yaa Gyasi’s brilliant debut novel in 2016 I was impressed by her skilful prose, and in particular, her talent for conjuring unusual images. Transcendent Kingdom is her second work of fiction and it’s as striking and memorable as her first. The novel is narrated by Gifty – a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience with an absent father, a severely depressed mother, and a lost older brother. As she moves between her past and the present, she attempts to discern meaning from the world. Packed with big ideas and startling imagery, Transcendent Kingdom is a novel about religion and science, about immigration and the reality of the ‘American Dream’, about families and trauma.

Mark Rubbo is reading Max by Alex Miller

As a young man, Alex Miller was befriended by Holocaust survivor Max Blatt, and it was this friend who gave the later winner of the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize and Miles Franklin Literary Award the confidence to write. Max had always been reticent about his past in conversations, mentioning only that he’d been tortured by the Gestapo and fought for resistance in Poland, but never sharing many details. In this powerful and moving book, Miller attempts to unravel the secrets of his late and dear friend’s past.

Tye Cattanach is reading Skunk and Badger by Amy Timberlake & Jon Klassen

The odd couple relationship is by no means a new concept, and particularly not in children’s books. For this reason, it must be done extraordinarily well to succeed as to hold up to other epic examples, including Ernie and Bert, Wallace and Gromit, Big Ears and Noddy, Toad of Toad Hall and the rest of those darling animals in The Wind in the Willows. I am delighted to report that Skunk and Badger, a fabulous collaboration between Newbery Honor–winner Amy Timberlake and superstar illustrator Jon Klassen, holds up VERY well indeed. I laughed so hard I snorted. I got a little teary. And I adored the clever storytelling, both in the text and the illustrations. I mean, let’s face it, Skunk and Badger is just a good time. Plus, how else will you learn what a rocket potato is?