The Green Knight
 Fascinating late Murdoch: Iris Murdoch's compelling next-to-last novel does show some evidence of the Alzheimer's disease that would soon destroy her mental faculties (and would also, if what I've read is right, become considerably more evident in her [... more]
$17.00
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The Unicorn
a very readable Murdoch novel: The Unicorn reads easily, with a plot that the average reader can outline and follow: a young woman is hired as a governess to a remote, mysterious household on the English coastline -- Murdoch did have an enormous [... more]
$16.00
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The Sea, The Sea (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
A must-read Murdoch: The Sea, The Sea is my favorite Iris Murdoch novel. I read it first 20+ years ago, laughed out loud, grimaced and cringed, and re-read it this spring with just as fresh a response as the first time. Murdoch tells her story from the [... more]
$16.00
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Something Special: A Story
Early Short Story - Diverting But Untypical: Iris Murdoch's novels are deep and intricate, peopled by complex characters engaged in philosophical struggles, narrated in strong and forthright terms by a writer lovingly in search of human goodness. This [... more]
$15.95
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A Severed Head
Depth, Wit, and Language: After completing this read, I retrospectively notice three primary functions that make it worthy of five stars. First, the language flows together to construct a cohesive work that captures the reader and doesn't let go. Second, [... more]
$15.00
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Nuns and Soldiers (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
Memorable characters, masterful plotting: "Nuns and Soldiers" was the first Iris Murdoch novel I read. I've since read many others, but it remains one of the most memorable, from the very first scene when an important character is on his [... more]
$18.00
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The Book and the Brotherhood: A Story about Love and ...
A Chorus-line of Snails: Iris Murdoch's "The Book and the Brotherhood" is a marvelously droll novel of manners that has the audacity to explore the philosophical and moral issues that have effectively paralyzed a group of `60s-era Oxford [... more]
$16.00
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An Accidental Man
Humour with a thick black edge: An Accidental man is a delicious read if you enjoy the tongue in cheek writing of Nancy Mitfod and Evelyn Waugh. It is essentially a story of an incestuous upper middle class English family and thier many friends and one [... more]
$17.00
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The Nice and the Good
An Exploration of Self-Myths: Murdoch explores how people's actions are driven by their self-images and personal mythologies. The vanities, fears or ambitions that dominate the way our lives unfold vary all over the place - from the need of the [... more]
$17.00
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A Fairly Honourable Defeat (Penguin Twentieth-Century ...
A more than fairly satisfying read: Brilliant! This novel has everything I look for in a truly great book: complex characters, deft plotting, luminous prose, and profound insight into the human condition. Iris Murdoch knew what it was to be human. She [... more]
$16.00
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The Italian Girl
Dark Family Drama: I honestly can't ever imagine giving an Iris Murdoch novel less than four stars. Her books are almost uniformly well written and compelling. This is no exception. The Italian Girl tells the story of an unhappy family on the eve of the [... more]
$10.95
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The Sandcastle
Not her best, but still interesting: I've always liked this novel, though it isn't what I would call Murdoch's best. I found it to be much gentler than her other novels: there isn't any of the astounding weirdness of The Good Apprentice or The Severed [... more]
$16.00
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