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The Bell
- By: Iris Murdoch
- Narrated by: Miriam Margolyes
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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A lay community of thoroughly mixed-up people is encamped outside Imber Abbey, home of an enclosed order of nuns. A new bell, legendary symbol of religion and magic, is rediscovered. Dora Greenfield, erring wife, returns to her husband. Michael Mead, leader of the community, is confronted by Nick Fawley, with whom he had disastrous homosexual relations, while the wise old Abbess watches and prays and exercises discreet authority. And everyone, or almost everyone, hopes to be saved whatever that may mean.
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Absolute pleasure
- By Karen on 03-10-12
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The Sea, the Sea
- Vintage Classics Murdoch Series
- By: Iris Murdoch
- Narrated by: Richard E. Grant
- Length: 23 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Charles Arrowby has determined to spend the rest of his days in hermit-like contemplation. He buys a mysteriously damp house on the coast, far from the heady world of the theatre where he made his name, and there he swims in the sea, eats revolting meals and writes his memoirs.But then he meets his childhood sweetheart Hartley, and memories of her lovely, younger self crowd in - along with more recent lovers and friends - to disrupt his self-imposed exile. So instead of 'learning to be good', Charles proceeds to demonstrate how very bad he can be.
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Thank you Richard E. Grant
- By AH on 28-04-20
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The Black Prince
- Vintage Classics Murdoch Series
- By: Iris Murdoch
- Narrated by: Anthony Howell
- Length: 18 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Story
Ex-tax collector and author of two unpopular novels, Bradley Pearson wishes to devote his retirement to writing a masterpiece. But the doorbell and the phone keep ringing and every ring brings with it an ex-wife, a friend in need, a sister in trouble or a young woman seeking a teacher and so dusty, selfish Bradley is plunged into the muddles and mysteries which will end in his doom.
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Great
- By GalenSolon on 29-04-20
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A Fairly Honourable Defeat
- Vintage Classics Murdoch Series
- By: Iris Murdoch
- Narrated by: Adam James
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Everyone is thinking about Julius King. For comfortable, long-married Hilda and Rupert, he is a mystery. For Morgan, Hilda’s tormented sister, he is an obsession. For Morgan’s abandoned husband, Tallis, he is the source of ruin. For Simon and Axel, deeply in love, he stirs up jealousy and unease. What is Julius thinking about? He’s thinking about Hilda, Rupert, Morgan, Tallis, Simon and Axel, and they will not all survive his malevolent attention.
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Another richly-rewarding Iris Murdoch novel
- By Amazon Customer on 05-02-21
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The Sandcastle
- Vintage Classics Murdoch Series
- By: Iris Murdoch
- Narrated by: Juliet Aubrey
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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When Bill Mor falls in love with Rain Carter, he discovers a new way of being and a new joy in the world and his surroundings. To be with Rain he must abandon his prosaic life as a schoolmaster, his domineering wife, Nan, and his troubled teenaged children. He must draw on the powers of selfishness, hatred and anger in order to make the final break. But what love could survive all that violence?
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super super Iris
- By michael procter on 17-08-20
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The Good Apprentice
- By: Iris Murdoch
- Narrated by: Christopher Cazenove
- Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Stuart Cuno has decided to become good. Not believing in God, he invents his own methods, which include celibacy, chastity, and the abandonment of a promising academic career. Interfering friends and relations question his sincerity, his sanity and his motives.
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Iris, really, you've gone too far this time
- By clive on 03-09-12
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The Bell
- By: Iris Murdoch
- Narrated by: Miriam Margolyes
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A lay community of thoroughly mixed-up people is encamped outside Imber Abbey, home of an enclosed order of nuns. A new bell, legendary symbol of religion and magic, is rediscovered. Dora Greenfield, erring wife, returns to her husband. Michael Mead, leader of the community, is confronted by Nick Fawley, with whom he had disastrous homosexual relations, while the wise old Abbess watches and prays and exercises discreet authority. And everyone, or almost everyone, hopes to be saved whatever that may mean.
-
-
Absolute pleasure
- By Karen on 03-10-12
-
The Sea, the Sea
- Vintage Classics Murdoch Series
- By: Iris Murdoch
- Narrated by: Richard E. Grant
- Length: 23 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charles Arrowby has determined to spend the rest of his days in hermit-like contemplation. He buys a mysteriously damp house on the coast, far from the heady world of the theatre where he made his name, and there he swims in the sea, eats revolting meals and writes his memoirs.But then he meets his childhood sweetheart Hartley, and memories of her lovely, younger self crowd in - along with more recent lovers and friends - to disrupt his self-imposed exile. So instead of 'learning to be good', Charles proceeds to demonstrate how very bad he can be.
-
-
Thank you Richard E. Grant
- By AH on 28-04-20
-
The Black Prince
- Vintage Classics Murdoch Series
- By: Iris Murdoch
- Narrated by: Anthony Howell
- Length: 18 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ex-tax collector and author of two unpopular novels, Bradley Pearson wishes to devote his retirement to writing a masterpiece. But the doorbell and the phone keep ringing and every ring brings with it an ex-wife, a friend in need, a sister in trouble or a young woman seeking a teacher and so dusty, selfish Bradley is plunged into the muddles and mysteries which will end in his doom.
-
-
Great
- By GalenSolon on 29-04-20
-
A Fairly Honourable Defeat
- Vintage Classics Murdoch Series
- By: Iris Murdoch
- Narrated by: Adam James
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone is thinking about Julius King. For comfortable, long-married Hilda and Rupert, he is a mystery. For Morgan, Hilda’s tormented sister, he is an obsession. For Morgan’s abandoned husband, Tallis, he is the source of ruin. For Simon and Axel, deeply in love, he stirs up jealousy and unease. What is Julius thinking about? He’s thinking about Hilda, Rupert, Morgan, Tallis, Simon and Axel, and they will not all survive his malevolent attention.
-
-
Another richly-rewarding Iris Murdoch novel
- By Amazon Customer on 05-02-21
-
The Sandcastle
- Vintage Classics Murdoch Series
- By: Iris Murdoch
- Narrated by: Juliet Aubrey
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Bill Mor falls in love with Rain Carter, he discovers a new way of being and a new joy in the world and his surroundings. To be with Rain he must abandon his prosaic life as a schoolmaster, his domineering wife, Nan, and his troubled teenaged children. He must draw on the powers of selfishness, hatred and anger in order to make the final break. But what love could survive all that violence?
-
-
super super Iris
- By michael procter on 17-08-20
-
The Good Apprentice
- By: Iris Murdoch
- Narrated by: Christopher Cazenove
- Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stuart Cuno has decided to become good. Not believing in God, he invents his own methods, which include celibacy, chastity, and the abandonment of a promising academic career. Interfering friends and relations question his sincerity, his sanity and his motives.
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Iris, really, you've gone too far this time
- By clive on 03-09-12
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The Razor's Edge
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of this spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham's most brilliant characters: his fiancée Isabel, whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions; and Elliot Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob. The most ambitious of Maugham's novels, this is also one in which Maugham himself plays a considerable part as he wanders in and out of the story, to observe his characters struggling with their fates.
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One of my desert island books
- By AReader on 04-02-15
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Jackson's Dilemma
- By: Iris Murdoch
- Narrated by: Juliet Mills
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Iris Murdoch's 26th novel is a romp as well as an homage to that master of convoluted comedy, Shakespeare. She has adopted a syncopated, slightly mocking tone, and many scenes have a distinctly theatrical air. She has also achieved a disarming sense of timelessness, due in part to the fact that her eccentric characters, a close-knit circle of friends, are extremely well-off and spend their days and nights dashing between their country estates and their London houses.
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Possession
- A Romance
- By: A. S. Byatt
- Narrated by: Samuel West
- Length: 21 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once a literary detective novel and a triumphant love story. It is the tale of a pair of young scholars investigating the lives of two Victorian poets. Following a trail of letters, journals and poems they uncover a web of passion, deceit and tragedy, and their quest becomes a battle against time.
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Great book made greater by superb performance
- By Falluntilyoufly on 19-04-19
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Lucky Jim
- Penguin Modern Classics
- By: Kingsley Amis
- Narrated by: James Lailey
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Jim Dixon has accidentally fallen into a job at one of Britain's new red brick universities. A moderately successful future in the History Department beckons. As long as Jim can survive a madrigal-singing weekend at Professor Welch's, deliver a lecture on 'Merrie England' and resist Christine, the hopelessly desirable girlfriend of Welch's awful son Bertrand.
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A Classic.
- By Manx user on 30-12-20
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Eight Months on Ghazzah Street
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Frances Shore is a cartographer by trade, a maker of maps, but when her husband's work takes her to Saudi Arabia she finds herself unable to map the Kingdom's areas of internal darkness. The regime is corrupt and harsh, and the streets are not a woman's territory; so she becomes confined in her flat. As her days empty of certainty and purpose, her life becomes a blank – waiting to be filled by violence and disaster.
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Disturbing
- By Maddy on 10-07-14
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The Complete Short Stories
- By: Muriel Spark
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson, Emilia Fox, Richard E. Grant
- Length: 17 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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The Complete Short Stories is a collection to be loved and cherished, from one of the finest short-story writers of the twentieth century. From the cruel irony of A member of the Family to the fateful echoes of The Go-Away Bird and the unexpectedly sinister The Girl I Left Behind Me, in settings that range from South Africa to the Portobello Road, Muriel Spark coolly probes the idiosyncrasies that lurk beneath the veneer of human respectability, displaying the acerbic wit and wisdom that are the hallmarks of her unique talent.
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Exceptional reading of substantial short stories
- By T on 07-05-15
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The Honorary Consul
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Tim Pigott-Smith
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The gripping tragi-comedy of a bungled kidnapping in a provincial Argentinean town tells the story of Charley Fortnum, the 'Honorary Consul', a whisky-sodden figure of dubious authority, who is taken by a group of revolutionaries. As Eduardo Plarr, a local doctor, negotiates with revolutionaries and authorities for Fortnum's release, the corruption of both becomes evident.
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Cracking Tale, Very Well Read
- By Robert on 29-04-12
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Rabbit, Run
- By: John Updike
- Narrated by: William Hope
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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It's 1959, and Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom, one-time high school sports superstar, is going nowhere. At twenty-six he is trapped in a second-rate existence - stuck with a fragile, alcoholic wife, a house full of overflowing ashtrays and discarded glasses, a young son and a futile job. With no way to fix things, he resolves to flee from his family and his home in Pennsylvania, beginning a thousand-mile journey that he hopes will free him from his mediocre life.
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"Glory Days"
- By DT on 24-10-15
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The Magic Mountain
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 37 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Hans Castorp is, on the face of it, an ordinary man in his early 20s, on course to start a career in ship engineering in his home town of Hamburg, when he decides to travel to the Berghof Santatorium in Davos. The year is 1912 and an oblivious world is on the brink of war. Castorp’s friend Joachim Ziemssen is taking the cure and a three-week visit seems a perfect break before work begins. But when Castorp arrives he is surprised to find an established community of patients, and little by little, he gets drawn into the closeted life and the individual personalities of the residents.
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Paint dries before the war.
- By Richard on 11-08-20
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The Heart of the Matter
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Michael Kitchen
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Scobie, a police officer in a West African colony, is a good and honest man. But when he falls in love, he is forced into a betrayal of everything that he has ever believed in, and his struggle to maintain the happiness of two women destroys him.
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Just brilliant
- By DartmoorDiva on 24-09-15
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A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement
- By: Anthony Powell
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 21 hrs
- Unabridged
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Anthony Powell's universally acclaimed epic encompasses a four-volume panorama of twentieth century London. Hailed by Time as "brilliant literary comedy as well as a brilliant sketch of the times," A Dance to the Music of Time opens just after World War I. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, Nick Jenkins and his friends confront sex, society, business, and art.
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Completely compulsive and absorbing
- By Louisa on 31-05-12
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The Adventures of Augie March
- By: Saul Bellow
- Narrated by: Tom Parker
- Length: 22 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Augie is a poor but exuberant boy growing up in Chicago during the Depression. While his friends all settle into chosen professions, Augie demands a special destiny. He tests out a wild succession of occupations, proudly rejecting each as too limiting - until he tangles with the glamorous perfectionist Thea.
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Did Feminism Liberate Men?
- By Philip on 20-06-13
Summary
Brought to you by Penguin.
Vintage Classics Murdoch: Funny, subversive, fearless and fiercely intelligent, Iris Murdoch was one of the great writers of the 20th century. To celebrate her centenary, Vintage Classics presents special editions of her greatest and most timeless novels.
‘This is real life, Jake,’ she said. ‘You’d better wake up.’
Jake is clever, lazy and scraping by in London as a hack translator. Jake loves Anna. Anna is an elusive and lovely singer. Anna loves Hugo. Hugo is a fireworks manufacturer turned movie producer and majestic philosopher. Hugo loves Sadie. Sadie is a glossy and dazzling film starlet. Of course, Sadie loves Jake. Then there's Marvellous Mister Mars, the famous hound, who might or might not be Jake's ticket up and out of this mess.
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What listeners say about Under the Net
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Overall
- Francis
- 18-07-11
Over the net
Under the Net, Iris Murdoch's entertaining first novel,presents a difficult task for any narrator . The story is told in the first person by a complex contradictory character Jake Donaghue -likeable but flawed, perceptive but often obtuse - and the narrative ranges from knockabout comedy to philosophical discussion.All these challenges are successfully met by Samuel West in this excellent reading. He judges the tone of each episode with great discernment and besides giving a convincing voice to the principal character West also succeeds in bringing to life all the characters Jake encounters. His intelligent interpretation will greatly add to the understanding and enjoyment of most readers -as with Timothy West's reading of Trollope, such an excellent performance gives listening to the audio book a distinct advantage over reading for oneself.
I hope that Samuel West will read more novels by Iris Murdoch.
16 people found this helpful
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- JF7588
- 30-07-14
More Murdoch
I would happily listen to more Murdoch - and this is one of her best, least typical novels, full of charm and thought and easy invention, lucidly read with intelligence and just the right amount of charm.
3 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 11-11-20
Unsure what this story was for
Struggled to read this book for book club but Samuel West brought it life. would not recommend