Astonishing -- John Sutherland Deeply impressive * Guardian * Reading these letters is like living Murdoch's whole creatively, sexually and intellectually voracious life alongside her, and at breakneck speed. Thrilling -- Sarah Bakewell, author of How to Live: A Life of Montaigne The letters themselves have been selected with conviction and care...the overwhelming sense of this volume is one of richness * Times Literary Supplement * Her mind, here as in everything she wrote, is formidable * New York Times * Astonishing epistolary abundance from a woman who meant it when she told a friend that she could "live in letters"... Few books leave the reader with as dizzying sense of the need to question absolutely everything * Daily Telegraph * We find a passionate engagement with the world of ideas, but most of all with friends, lovers, and pupils. These letters reveal Murdoch's extraordinary talent for affection, exuberant sense of fun, razor-sharp intelligence, and acute awareness of the transcendent -- Karen Armstrong Exemplary... The reader grows up and grows old with Murdoch * Literary Review * This collection of letters provides a fascinating insight into the life of a complex and important novelist. It is a wonderful book -- Alexander McCall Smith Murdoch was not writing for posterity; she was writing for her friends, or rather as a way of maintaining her friendships, whether intellectual, passionate or both...the letters reinforce Murdoch's qualities as a person * Independent *