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.

Ele Jenkins is reading In Calabria by Peter S. Beagle

I just finished In Calabria by Peter S. Beagle. You may recognise Beagle as the author of fantasy classic The Last Unicorn, and fifty years later (fifty!) he has returned to write about his favourite mythical creature with just as much wistful poetic brilliance.

The crotchety and intensely private Claudio Bianchi is visited by a unicorn, who appears in his run-down vineyard and brings the world media swarming to his doorstep. With the help of the postman’s wilful younger sister he must try to shield the magical beast – and his own solitary life – from the sudden invasion of the twenty-first century.

The characters are beautifully drawn, and the magic provides a backdrop for gentle explorations of human connection and emotion. Events take a dark turn when the Calabrese mafia take an interest in Bianchi’s farm, and the last third of the story is told in a headlong rush of romance and terror. This book is a one-sitting delight.

Mike Shuttleworth is reading Never Anyone But You by Rupert Thomson

Artists and lovers Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore were born Lucy Schwob and Susan Malherbe. We follow their lives from teenagers in a provincial French city, through the sparkling years of 1920s Paris, and ultimately to their years-long anti-fascist propaganda campaign on Nazi-occupied Jersey. All dramatic stuff, and in the hands of novelist Rupert Thomson, thrillingly, emotionally alive. Thomson’s closely observed, vivid prose crackles with ideas that echo down the decades: gender, identity, art and power. But at the heart of Never Anyone But You is the deep and particular love two women held for each other and lived out whatever the risks.

Bronte Coates is reading Normal People by Sally Rooney (available September)

I really loved Sally Rooney’s debut novel of last year, which I wrote about in a previous ‘What We’re Reading’ column, and now I can add that I really love her second novel too.

In simplest terms, Normal People is the story of a relationship between two people, Connell and Marianne, from their teens through to adulthood – a summary that doesn’t convey the full power of this book. Rooney is such a smart and perceptive writer. Her fluid prose is so easy to read that it’s difficult to see how much work is happening on the page, but this is undeniably a novel about big ideas. It’s a love story that is also about class, trauma, mental illness, adolescence, loneliness and the ways in which we change other people’s lives. The story unfolds from the alternating perspectives of Connell and Marianne, and Rooney depicts their feelings so acutely that meeting them feels intimate. I don’t think I’ll ever forget them.

Look out for this book later this year, and in the meantime, if you haven’t already, make sure to pick up Rooney’s first novel, Conversations with Friends, which is equally smart and insightful.