This is a memoir of Iris Murdoch written by her husband after she’s been overtaken by Alzheimer’s disease. Judging by the fact that I have Judi Dench on the cover of my copy rather than Iris herself I’m guessing it’s been made into a film.

Murdoch was a favourite writer of mine for a long time. That makes it sound like I don’t like her any more, I’m sure I do. I just haven’t read anything of hers for a long time. Probably because she wrote her last book in 1996ish just before the Alzheimer’s diagnosis—I haven’t read that one as it seemed to be a sad coda to an illustrious career—and also because I’ve read most of them already, mostly when I was in college and haven’t had much desire to reread them (until now). Anyway, I like her books.

This is a lovely engaging look back over her life intertwined with a look at how the couple cope with her Alzheimer’s. It seemed to have a few editing anomalies, e.g. the death of Diana being referred to in a diary entry dated before she died. I enjoyed reading this a lot though, and mostly now I want to seek out any o her books I haven’t already read and maybe reread some I have.