From his first collection, "The Same Door," released in 1959, to his last, "My Father's Tears," published fifty years later, John Updike was America's reigning master of the short story, "our second Hawthorne," as Philip Roth described him. His evocations of small-town Pennsylvania life, and of his [...]
The Library of America presents the first of two volumes in its definitive Updike collection. Here are 102 classic stories that chart Updike's emergence as America's foremost practitioner of the short story, "our second Hawthorne," as Philip Roth described him. Based on new archival research, each s[...]
Since the series' inception in 1915, the annual volumes of The Best American Short Stories have launched literary careers, showcased the most compelling stories of each year, and confirmed for all time the significance of the short story in our national literature. Now The Best American Short Storie[...]
Updated to include newly released letters written between 1976 and 1985, a thirtieth anniversary edition shares the New Yorker writer's and classic author's thoughts about such topics as the uncertainty of the future, his marriage, and his relationships with such colleagues as James Thurber, Groucho[...]
In his extraordinary and highly charged new novel, John Updike tackles one of America's most burning issues - the threat of Islamist terror from within. Set in contemporary New Jersey, "Terrorist" traces the journey of one young man, from radicalism to fundamentalism to terrorism, against the backdr[...]
In the small town of Pierce Junction adultery is the popular pastime and pillow talk the common currency. Martin knows the women he hasn't yet seduced hold his attention for the longest, and Winifred, married to his own wife's lover, stirs him in ways he never expects. United by the theme of love, t[...]
John Updike was a master storyteller, and this collection, from his final years, reveals that up to the end he remained the finest short-story writer of his generation. 'Magnificent, exhilarating, crisply evocative, rippling with irony. Updike's genius can be seen on peak form. With this book, a tal[...]
The first book in his award-winning "Rabbit" series, John Updike's "Rabbit, Run" contains an afterword by the author in "Penguin Modern Classics". 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 - [...]
Middle-aged, brilliant and bored, Roger Lambert is a professor of Divinity at a New England university. Firmly convinced that religious belief can only be justified by recourse to pure faith, he is dismissive when visited by a gangling student who claims, with evangelical zeal, that computer technol[...]
It's 1989, and Harry Rabbit Angstrom is far from restful. Fifty-six and overweight, he has a struggling business on his hands and a heart that is starting to fail. His family, too, is giving him cause for concern. His son, Nelson, is a wreck of a man, a cocaine addict with shattered self-respect. Ja[...]
At the Diamond County Home for the Aged, the inmates prepare for the annual ritual of the Poorhouse Fair, a summer celebration at which the old and infirm sell their produce on stalls to the people of the local town. Bitter, resentful and edging towards senility, the elderly residents of the Home ta[...]
It's 1969, and the times are changing. America is about to land a man on the moon, the Vietnamese war is in full swing, and racial tension is on the rise. Things just aren't as simple as they used to be - at least, not for Rabbit Angstrom. His wife has left him with his teenage son, his job is under[...]
It's 1979 and Rabbit is no longer running. He's walking, and beginning to get out of breath. That's ok, though - it gives him the chance to enjoy the wealth that comes with middle age. It's all in place: he's Chief Sales Representative and co-owner of Springer motors; his wife, at home or in the clu[...]
Nothing in his previous life could have prepared Colonel Hakim Felix Ellellou for his new role as the President of Kush. Neither the French army nor his American university provided a grounding in the subtle skills of revolutionary dictatorship. Still less did they expect him to acquire four wives..[...]
The air of Eastwick breeds witches - women whose powerful longings can stir up thunderstorms and fracture domestic peace. Jane, Alexandra and Sukie, divorced and dangerous, have formed a coven. Into the void of Eastwick breezes Darryl Van Horne, a charismatic magus of a man who entrances the trio, l[...]
This is an intoxicating yet sensitive novel about the sexual experiences of ten couples from Tarbox, New England. Well-to-do, sociable, articulate but dangerously unfulfilled; they play word games in the evening and adultery all year round.[...]
Sally is big, blonde and pampered. She's married to Richard. But she loves Jerry. Jerry loves Sally in return, but he's also still in love with his wife Ruth. Who's been sleeping with Richard ...As a hot, feverish summer of snatched weekends, secret phone calls and illicit lovemaking on the beach co[...]
'There, in Russia five years ago, when Cuba had been taken out of the oven to cool and Vietnam was still coming to a simmer, Bech did find a quality of life - impoverished yet ceremonial, shabby yet ornate, sentimental, embattled, and avuncular-reminiscent of his neglected Jewish past'. In these two[...]
In a poor, remote section of southern Mexico, the Red Shirts have taken control. God has been outlawed, and the priests have been systematically hunted down and killed. Now, the last priest strives to overcome physical and moral cowardice in order to find redemption.[...]
One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, in a new edition commemorating its 75th anniversary
Seventy-five years ago, Graham Greene published "The Power and the Glory, "a moralist thriller that traces a line of influence back to Dostoyevsky and forward to Cormac McCarthy. Named one o[...]
More than three decades have passed since the events described in "The Witches of Eastwick" and the three divorcees - Alexandra, Jane and Sukie - have left town, remarried, and become widows. They cope with their grief and solitude as widows do: they travel the world to exotic lands such as Canada, [...]
Following on from the acclaimed "Just Looking" and "Still Looking", "Always Looking" is an insightful collection of art criticism and a masterclass in appreciating art - from the great American man of letters, John Updike. "Always Looking" treats readers to a series of elegant and sensitive essays o[...]
"Higher Gossip" presents John Updike's last collection of essays, poems and short stories. 'Gossip of a higher sort' was how the incomparable John Updike described the art of the review. Here then is the last collection of his best, most dazzling gossip. Influential reviews of Toni Morrison, John le[...]
The ever-surprising John Updike's twenty-second novel is a brilliant contemporary fiction that will surely be counted as one of his most powerful.
It tells of eighteen-year-old Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy and his devotion to Allah and the words of the Holy Qur'an, as expounded to him by a local [...]