The Bell by Iris Murdoch is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, the Revd Jeremy Davies, retired Canon Precentor of Salisbury Cathedral, who has a long and abiding interest in the works of Iris Murdoch, discusses the book with Francis Martin, who has written about the book in this week’s Church Times.

Published in 1958, The Bell is hailed as a great work of philosophical and psychological fiction. The story centres on a group of characters, all with complex problems, who seek refuge in a lay religious community in rural Gloucestershire. Their community sits alongside a medieval abbey inhabited by Benedictine nuns. As the two neighbouring communities await the arrival of a new replacement bell for the medieval bell tower, the story takes an unexpected turn when the missing bell is found and retrieved from the lake near by.

The Bell is published by Vintage Classics at £10.99 (Church Times Bookshop £9.89); 978-0-09-947048-9. https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780099470489/bell?vc=CT804

The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature. https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk

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