Stephen Ramay

We all kind of know that Jesus was crucified at roughly the age of 33.

Well, that doesn't happen to David in these books.

In fact, I wouldn't even like to say much more about what happens to David in these books, because I think even with the titles,

readers might still not know what's going to happen because it isn't about 30-year-old men in the Middle East.

The other two I would select would be Charlotte Wood's new novel, The Weekend.

It's staggeringly good.

I think it's her best book, and that's quite a big statement given her previous novel, The Natural Way of Things, was also a remarkable work of fiction.

But this one, I think, takes a further step, takes us somewhere else.

And also, it's just remarkable how she adjusts as a writer to an entirely different group of characters.

The four main characters in the new novel are all about 72.

In the previous novel, they were young women who'd been abducted and held hostage in the outback.

Just remarkable writing.

And also, before I finish on that, it has the greatest dog character just about that I've ever seen.

Finn, the 17-year-old Labrador poodle, who's much more than a dog.

arthritic, deaf, more or less blind, incontinent.

In need of a wash.

He's 17 and I only found out this week there's been a new study that's come out that's reassessed how we age dogs, in fact.

And using the algorithm that this new study has supplied, I have worked out that Finn is 75.

So he's in fact the exact same age almost as the women in the novel.

And I think that's very important.