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.

Chris Somerville is reading Small Acts of Disappearance by Fiona Wright

I’ve been looking forward to this essay collection since reading different versions of them in various magazines. While being subtitled, ‘Essays on Hunger’ and being based around her struggle with anorexia, the collection, like the best essay writing, covers a wide and varying range of subjects, such as the ethics of using people’s lives for your own gain and living and working as an expat journalist in Sri Lanka.

I’m only halfway through the book, but it’s already becoming one of the best I’ve read all year.

Bronte Coates is reading The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante

Last weekend I devoured Elena Ferrante’s final instalment of her Neapolitan Novels. (If you need a refresher on this author and how much our staff have loved her books, please see here.) I find it hard to separate this fourth part from the first three. Reading these novels has been like reading one very long story and for me, there has been no point along the way where Ferrante’s prose has slackened or where the narrative has become muddled. As I wrote in my review, these novels are among the most important in my reading life. I want everyone to read them.

You can read my review here. The book will be released on Tuesday 1 September.

Deborah Crabtree is reading M Train by Patti Smith

I managed to wrest one of these rare and coveted birds from the publishers with a pitch to take this proof copy along with me to France, where I was heading to see Patti Smith play in an ancient Roman ampitheatre in Lyon. The plan was to read M Train on my Patti pilgrimage and write something incorporating the journey, gig and book into some concoction of personal essay/article/review. The book, unfortunately, didn’t reach me in time for the trip. Instead, I revisited Just Kids while away and am only now reading M Train on my return. I’ve no doubt another story will come out of this.

Smith hits Café ‘Ino each morning and sits at a favoured corner table to drink coffee and write in her notebook about nothing. Much of that nothing fills the pages of M Train and it’s nothing short of profound. Each chapter, or station, recording time moving backwards and forwards, alights on moments in Smith’s life. Exquisitely turned sentences and contemplative riffs on writers and writing, books, music, creativity, sensitivity, love, life and death and the whole gamut of nothing makes for a beautiful and brilliant read. It’s a perfect companion to Just Kids. Look out for it in October.

Alan Vaarwerk is reading Kill It Yourself by Jess Ribeiro

Since hearing an interview with Melbourne singer-songwriter Jess Ribeiro on the radio this week, I’ve been listening to her stripped-down, bluesy Kill It Yourself, recorded in collaboration with long-time Nick Cave collaborator Mick Harvey. Ribeiro’s voice is haunting and understatedly beautiful, moving away from her country roots to something darker and more minimalist. The title track ponders the connections between ourselves and our food, and I can’t stop thinking about it.