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.

Paul Goodmam is reading Submission by Michel Houellebecq

I’ve just finished Michel Houellebecq’s controversial Submission and found that, as with all illicit fiction, a simple reading of the text takes you past the scandal to a novel that reads more like a cry for help than an attack. Houellebecq’s oeuvre wrestles time and again with the vulnerability of the West in a post-religious era, and in Submission’s narrator, 40-something François, we have an individual who has no strong position either way, who lives relationship to relationship, eating meals so beautifully crafted they are obscene and contemplating suicide. When the Muslim Brotherhood wins the 2022 election, the imposing of a robust belief system on French society seems to offer a path. Houellebecq loves to provoke, and he does so with his approach, with his language, but not with hate. This novel is a call for living a meaningful life. As with Salman Rushdie, it should be read and discussed, not dismissed out of hand.

Chris Somerville is reading Sabrina by Nick Drnaso

Whether or not you think a graphic novel should be longlisted for the Man Booker Prize doesn’t really matter, as Sabrina should be read regardless of this debate. Focusing on the aftermath of a young woman’s disappearance, Nick Drnaso’s excellent work looks at surveillance, the military, conspiracy theories and – my favourite subject – how the internet is bad and ruining us all.

Ed. note: Due to high demand, this book is currently out of stock at Readings. The book is being reprinted at the moment and we’re expecting more copies to arrive in mid-October.

Bronte Coates is reading Chemistry by Weike Wang

I picked up Weike Wang’s slim, compulsively readable debut novel after reading her terrific story, ‘Omakase’, which was published online at the New Yorker a few months ago. Chemistry follows an unnamed character who is plagued by indecision: she has no answer to her boyfriend’s marriage proposal, her research as a post-grad chemistry student has stagnated, and she’s unable to move past the expectations she feels as a child of first generation Chinese immigrants. As the narrator’s life slowly comes apart, she reflects on how different scientific processes work. Her relationship with her parents is ever-present throughout, humming in the background of her daily life. The New York Times described Chemistry as an 'anti-coming-of-age story’ which sums it up perfectly – this is a story about what happens when things don’t work out and it both sharply funny and emotionally devastating at the same time.