In his insightful biography of author John Updike, Adam Begley begins with a chapter he called “A Tour of Berks County.” A freelance writer, William Ecenbarger, has arrived in Shillington, Updike’s ...

Updike the letter writer is recognizably the Updike of stories and novels: alert to surfaces, exacting about tone, attentive to how feeling registers in objects and habits. The letters reveal a man ...

A brilliant prose stylist, confident, amiable, and wonderfully lucid when talking about other people’s problems, Updike rarely confessed or confronted his own. One day in the fall of 1951, when he was ...

Following the publication of the novelist’s letters, we count down the best of his books, from the dark magic of The Witches of Eastwick to the misadventures of Rabbit Angstrom Inspired by and drawing ...

In this huge attractive new selection of his letters, Updike’s appreciative readers can now pass amiably through the corridors of prose that Updike wrote to friends and family when he wasn’t writing ...

The novelist’s collected correspondence reveals a narrative of striving, sex and success By James Marcus Seated on his mother’s lap in a 1933 photograph, the infant John Updike already looks like ...

John Updike remains one of the most admired and prolific voices in American Literature. Over five decades he produced novels, short stories, poems, criticism, and essays that examine faith and art, ...

The stacks at Harvard’s Widener Library are, I have come to believe, the best place to hide if you want to spend an afternoon reading uninterrupted but not alone. Widener has that rare charm conferred ...

The prolific novelist’s correspondence, collected for the first time, trace a life of literary brilliance, turbulent loves and everyday pleasures. By Dwight Garner When you purchase an independently ...

In a 1989 memoir called “Self-Consciousness,” John Updike (1932-2009) remembered his childhood sense “of an embowering wide world arranged for my mystification and entertainment.” In many ways, this ...

Isaac Updike of Ketchikan feels ready to compete against the best from around the globe at the 2025 World Track and Field Championships. The 33-year-old 3,000-meter steeplechase runner will be ...

New Takes on the classics. Throughout our centennial year, we’re revisiting notable works from the archive. Sign up to receive them directly in your inbox. The original idea was an assignation. On a ...