Each week our amazing staff bring you a sample of the books or music they're immersed in.

Dani Solomon is reading I Can Open That! by Shinsuke Yoshitake

Another Shinsuke Yoshitake book, another hit. I Can Open That! begins with a little boy who laments how hard it is to open things like chocolate wrappers and orange juice. This leads to him imagining how great it will be when he can open things on his own, he'll be an official Opener of Everything! But for now, can his dad open his orange juice for him?

The second half of the book takes a little turn into the sentimental as the dad assures his son he does like opening things for him and takes a second to appreciate how much his son needs him now while imagining all the things they'll do together as his son needs him less and less.

Sometimes sweet but always funny is a good descriptor for all of Shinsuke Yoshitake's books but I think it applies doubly so for this. I Can Open That! is a wonderful book highlighting those moments parents have when they're suddenly aware of how precious little time they will have with their children when they are this exact age right now. 

Mark Rubbo is readings August Blue by Deborah Levy

I’ve been reading Deborah Levy’s most recent novel, August Blue. It’s the first time I’ve read any of her works and I’m so pleased I’ve encountered her; she writes so beautifully.

Elsa M. Anderson is a renowned concert pianist suffering a crisis in her professional and personal life. While playing to a packed house in Vienna she loses her way and walks off stage. A few weeks later she is in Athens and sees a woman, vaguely familiar, buying some mechanical horses. She becomes obsessed with the woman and the horses, convinced that there is some connection between them; as she moves to Paris, to London, she glimpses the woman fleetingly, provocatively.

I haven’t finished it yet but I can’t wait to see how the book resolves.

Joe Murray is reading Gorilla City (The Lost Diaries of Charlie Small, Volume 1) by Nick Ward

Recently I've been nostalgically re-reading Gorilla City, the first book of The Lost Diaries of Charlie Small, a series I thought had disappeared, like many of my childhood favourites, but has been miraculously resurrected by Hardie Grant with great new covers. The series follows Charlie Small, a 'very lost' twelve-year-old boy adventuring through strange and dangerous worlds on a centuries long quest to find his way back home, fighting giant gorillas, dastardly puppet masters and wild-west bandits along the way.

Each book is presented as one of Charlie's diaries, filled with scribbles, doodles and genuine first-person narration that make the absurd events feel like they really happened (or at least my 10-year-old self almost believed them!) There is much imagination and adventure on display in these books and I'm so happy to be able to introduce them to people! Fingers crossed more of my childhood favourites get similar treatment (I'm looking at you Edge Chronicles)!