The place to find past issues of the Your Next Book newsletter
– my take on some of the outstanding writing on my bookshelf

This is a deeply shocking story on many levels. The plot itself is decidedly unnerving. The psychological strain on Rosa, Maria and Lily leaps off the page. The power invested in men reminds the reader of The Handmaid’s Tale. But this is Spain a hundred years ago. The depths of poverty, the hard scrabble life of even those with land and housing, like Catalina’s family, is hard to imagine. But you will imagine it because Patricia Román is so good at leading you there.

Why have I paired Heart of a Dog and A Gentleman in Moscow? Largely because one scene in Heart of a Dog struck a vein of humour for me. I believe it was the inspiration for a similar scene in A Gentleman in Moscow. Not plagiarism. Nothing like. Rather the best form of literary influence.

When I re-read Hamnet I could see what the book could do that the movie couldn’t and also what the movie could do that is hard to achieve in a book. Physicality is something the medium of film imparts directly – in pictures, no less. Countryside, buildings, streets, clothes ­– all these have to be described by an author and realised in the mind of a reader. Good cinema hands them to you to enjoy in glorious colour. Hamnet the movie does this movie thing very well and then dou