We've rounded up 20 great books we think everyone should read by 50

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20 books everyone should read in their fifties

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Where to start reading Iris Murdoch’s books

The Sandcastle

Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin in 1919. She read Classics at Somerville College, Oxford, and after working in the Treasury and abroad, was awarded a research studentship in Philosophy at Newnham College, Cambridge. In 1948 she returned to Oxford as fellow and tutor at St Anne's College and later taught at the Royal College of Art. Until her death in 1999, she lived in Oxford with her husband, the academic and critic, John Bayley. She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1987 and in the 1997 PEN Awards received the Gold Pen for Distinguished Service to Literature.

When Bill Mor falls in love with Rain Carter he discovers a new way of being. 
 
Suddenly there is joy to be found 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? 
 
‘One of her most haunting works... She is spectacularly enigmatic’ Philippa Gregory 
 
‘An absolutely scintillating, slightly bizarre page-turner’ Daily Mail 
 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BIDISHA

A Fairly Honourable Defeat

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. 
 
'The most important novelist writing in my time' A. S. Byatt 
 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY GARTH GREENWELL

A BBC Radio Collection

Iris Murdoch: The Sea, The Sea, A Severed Head & Something Special

Full-cast dramatisations and a reading of works by Iris Murdoch, plus a bonus interview with the author herself

Iris Murdoch (Author) Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin in 1919. She read Classics at Somerville College, Oxford, and after working in the Treasury and abroad, was awarded a research studentship in Philosophy at Newnham College, Cambridge. In 1948 she returned to Oxford as fellow and tutor at St Anne's College and later taught at the Royal College of Art. Until her death in 1999, she lived in Oxford with her husband, the academic and critic, John Bayley. She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1987 and in the 1997 PEN Awards received the Gold Pen for Distinguished Service to Literature.

Full-cast dramatisations and a reading of works by Iris Murdoch, plus a bonus interview with the author herself 
 
Booker Prize-winning author Iris Murdoch is renowned for her sublime fiction, exploring themes such as art, passion, morality and human freedom. Included in this collection are adaptations of two of her finest novels and a reading of her only published short story, as well as an edition of Writers Revealed in which Murdoch discusses her ideas and beliefs. 
 
The Sea, The Sea 
Charles Arrowby, celebrated actor, writer and director, has retired from his London world and come to the sea to become a hermit and draft his memoirs. But the past will not let him rest… This dramatisation of Murdoch’s most famous novel, which won the Booker Prize in 1978, stars John Wood as Charles and Joyce Redman as Hartley. 
 
A Severed Head 
When Martin Lynch-Gibbon's wife runs off with her analyst and his best friend, Palmer Anderson, the three characters attempt to behave in a civilised manner. But there is the matter of Martin's mistress and Palmer's sister to contend with – and undoubtedly the thin veneer of civilisation will crack… Iris Murdoch’s blackly comic satire on analysis and amorality stars Julian Rhind-Tutt, Victoria Hamilton and Matthew Marsh. 
 
Something Special 
Young Irishwoman Yvonne passionately believes that there is more to life than marriage to Sam, a respectable tailor's apprentice. But a night out in Dublin forces her to confront reality… Read by Catherine Cusack. 
 
Writers Revisited: Iris Murdoch 
Iris Murdoch talks about faith, religion and the creative process in conversation with Rosemary Hartill.

Under The Net (Vintage Classics Murdoch Series)

The novel that launched Iris Murdoch's career – now republished as part of the Vintage Classics Murdoch Series – six gorgeous editions of her best, funniest and most subversive novels published to mark her centenary.

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. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CHARLOTTE MENDELSON 
 
 VINTAGE CLASSICS MURDOCH: Funny, subversive, fearless and fiercely intelligent, Iris Murdoch was one of the great writers of the twentieth century. To celebrate her centenary Vintage Classics presents special editions of her greatest and most timeless novels.

Under the Net announces the emergence of a brilliant talent

A dazzling story, light and comic in touch

This is a comedy with that touch of ferocity about it which makes for excitement

I was drawn to the intellectual speculation and psychological depth of Murdoch’s writing, and the experience of reading her brought the realisation that, for me, thinking would always be the greater part of reading

'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. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CHARLOTTE MENDELSON 
 
 VINTAGE CLASSICS MURDOCH: Funny, subversive, fearless and fiercely intelligent, Iris Murdoch was one of the great writers of the twentieth century. To celebrate her centenary Vintage Classics presents special editions of her greatest and most timeless novels.

The Sandcastle (Vintage Classics Murdoch Series)

Iris Murdoch's tragic, comic tale of love and lust – now republished as part of the Vintage Classics Murdoch Series – six gorgeous editions of her best, funniest and most subversive novels published to mark her centenary.

It's all dry sand running through the fingers.' 
 
 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? 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BIDISHA 
 
 VINTAGE CLASSICS MURDOCH: Funny, subversive, fearless and fiercely intelligent, Iris Murdoch was one of the great writers of the twentieth century. To celebrate her centenary Vintage Classics presents special editions of her greatest and most timeless novels.

How bloody good her novels are – how intelligent, how lucent, how divinely crazy. They’re fun – I’d forgotten that.

One of her most haunting works... She is spectacularly enigmatic

Her characters are described with loving exactitude and in such depth that their struggles to define what it means to live a good life take on dramatic force.

Iris Murdoch is incapable of writing without fascinating and beautiful colour

She believes in everything: true love, veridical visions, magic, monsters, pagan spirits. Her world is ignited by belief

An absolutely scintillating, slightly bizarre, page-turner

'It's all dry sand running through the fingers.' 
 
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? 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BIDISHA 
 
 VINTAGE CLASSICS MURDOCH: Funny, subversive, fearless and fiercely intelligent, Iris Murdoch was one of the great writers of the twentieth century. To celebrate her centenary Vintage Classics presents special editions of her greatest and most timeless novels.

The Bell (Vintage Classics Murdoch Series)

A novel that offers uplifting lessons in love – now republished as part of the Vintage Classics Murdoch Series – six gorgeous editions of her best, funniest and most subversive novels published to mark her centenary.

'In this holy community she would play the witch.' 
 
 Imber Court is a quiet haven for lost souls, a utopia for those who can neither live in the world, nor out of it. But beneath the gentle daily routines of this community run currents of supressed desire, religious yearning and a legend of disastrous love. Charming, indolent Dora arrives in their midst, and half-unwittingly conjures these submerged things to the surface. 
 
 'A tragi-comic masterpiece... a magnificent novel.' Susan Hill, The Lady 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SARAH PERRY 
 
 VINTAGE CLASSICS MURDOCH: Funny, subversive, fearless and fiercely intelligent, Iris Murdoch was one of the great writers of the twentieth century. To celebrate her centenary Vintage Classics presents special editions of her greatest and most timeless novels.

She's writing about the only things that matter – love, goodness and how to be happy

The plot is both comical and moving, and it’s a book that everyone who’s ever been tempted to throw in the towel and become a hermit should read....despite the grand subjects at issue, the novel’s tone is not at all dry or didactic – it is, on the contrary, wonderfully lively and poignant at the same time, tender with a sprightly social comedy reminiscent of PG Wodehouse and Barbara Pym

Her characters are described with loving exactitude and in such depth that their struggles to define what it means to live a good life take on dramatic force

How bloody good her novels are – how intelligent, how lucent, how divinely crazy. They’re fun – I’d forgotten that

Above all, she was a consummate story-teller, prodigiously inventive and generous, in the realist tradition of Dickens, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky

A tragi-comic masterpiece... A magnificent novel

Her best book… Classic Murdoch tropes… are married to a spry and well-developed plot

The Bell is not frightening, precisely, but it offers that uneasy sensation of being suspended, somehow, between what is familiar and what is strange… a kind of hot, dreamlike muddle… The Bell has, in the 60 years since its publication, lost none of its power to disrupt

Iris Murdoch (Author) Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin in 1919. She read Classics at Somerville College, Oxford, and after working in the Treasury and abroad, was awarded a research studentship in Philosophy at Newnham College, Cambridge. In 1948 she returned to Oxford as fellow and tutor at St Anne's College and later taught at the Royal College of Art. Until her death in 1999, she lived in Oxford with her husband, the academic and critic, John Bayley. She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1987 and in the 1997 PEN Awards received the Gold Pen for Distinguished Service to Literature. Sarah Perry (Introducer) Sarah Perry is the internationally best-selling author of the novels Melmoth, The Essex Serpent and After Me Comes the Flood, and the non-fiction Essex Girls. She is a winner of the Waterstone’s Book of the Year Award and the British Book of the Year Award and has been nominated for major literary prizes including the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Folio Prize and the Costa Novel Award. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has a PhD in Creative Writing.

‘In this holy community she would play the witch.’ 
 
 Imber Court is a quiet haven for lost souls, a utopia for those who can neither live in the world, nor out of it. But beneath the gentle daily routines of this community run currents of supressed desire, religious yearning and a legend of disastrous love. Charming, indolent Dora arrives in their midst, and half-unwittingly conjures these submerged things to the surface. 
 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SARAH PERRY 
 
VINTAGE CLASSICS MURDOCH: Funny, subversive, fearless and fiercely intelligent, Iris Murdoch was one of the great writers of the twentieth century. To celebrate her centenary Vintage Classics presents special editions of her greatest and most timeless novels.

Iris Murdoch

Candia McWilliam

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CANDIA MCWILLIAM 
 
The Black Prince is both a remarkable thriller and a story about being in love. 
 
Bradley Pearson, narrator and hero, is an elderly writer with a 'block'. Finding himself surrounded by predatory friends and relations - his ex-wife, her delinquent brother, a younger, deplorably successful writer, Arnold Baffin, Baffin's restless wife and engaging daughter - Bradley attempts to escape. His failure to do so and its aftermath lead to a violent climax and a most unexpected conclusion.

Iris Murdoch

The Black Prince

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