Excellent use of Sartre's existential ethic. Showed main character making a tough choice & choosing the one best suited to his own truths.

good story but i dont know the exact point og the gender relations updike is trying to present.

This audio collection of short stories - by three American Masters, Raymond Carver, John Cheever, and John Updike - is perfect for that next long drive, morning commute, or anytime you need something really good to listen to. I highly recommend.

John Updike is famous for his novels, of course, but I have been a fan of his poetry for 35 years, since Telephone Poles and The Carpentered Hen were issued in a single paperback volume called "Verse." While his best work was probably the adaptations of Yevtushenko that he did in Hugging the Shore, he has also had other triumphs. This book is his greatest of those. His early work was labeled as "light verse," but it was frequently much more. He wrote a great poem many years ago about a young man named Flick Webb, a high school basketball star turned gas station attendant. Flick was later to become his most famous fictional character, Rabbit Angstrom. The poem (I don't recall the title)contained such great lines as "...bright applauding tiers of Necco Wafers, Jibs, and Juju Beads." He has returned to that kind of vivid imagery in "Americana." For instance: "...brightly colored pools of candy bars; the men's room prim beside the equal-access women's; briefcases floating in a leather flock..." This volume contains A++ stuff of Philip Levine quality. Startling, remarkably perceptive and observant, beautiful but rarely obscure. You'll stop and read passages aloud dozens of times to whoomever you feel is worthy of hearing it. Highly recommended.

Trifonov's novel tells the story of a group of Moscow friends who grow into adulthood against the backdrop of Soviet Russia from Stalin through to Brezhnev's time. Trifonov uses two narrators, and their contrasting viewpoints make the betrayals and the corruptions necessary for individuals to survive in that time, especially poignant. The moral decay of the individual living in Soviet society and the use of history and truth as a football, are chilling. It is unfortunate that this novel is out of print because it is certainly one of the better novels to come out of the Soviet Union in its dying days.

This is a hand bound and hand printed Limited Signed Edition of 150 by Metacom Press of Updime's short story, BROTHER GRASSHOPPER. It also appears as the third story in THE AFTERLIFE and OTHER STORIES published in 1994 by Alfred A. Knopf.

In this masterful short story that is Mr. Updike's forte, Fred Emmet and Carlyle Saughterfield become almost like brothers during their courtship with the Terwilliger sisters, Betsy and Germaine. First Fred and Betsy are married and then Carlyle and Germaine; but the couples remain close. Even though the couples now live far apart, Fred and his family in Brookline, Mass. and Carlyle and his family in Los Angeles, and have amassed nine children between the two of them, they all enjoy getting together during vacations to enjoy sailing, skiing, and shopping on beaches, mountains, and shopping malls.

In Updike's extraordinary use of language and perception, he describes Fred as the plodder in real estate and Carlyle as the fervent adventure photographer who lost his entire fortune to a failed B movie attempt. Even after the couples respective divorces and the Terwilliger sisters have gone their separate ways, Germaine calls Fred and Maintained that "he loved you". Updike does it again. An exhilarating five star.

A "must have" for any true Cole Porter fan or music researcher. This collection has the all the lyrics for Cole Porter's almost-1000 songs! Of particular note is an awesome "phrase index" for looking up common phrases and quotes in order to find what song a phrase is from. It also includes copyright information for every song for those who want to quote Cole for whatever reason.

A wonderful collection of some fine stories by one of the greatest writers America will ever produce.

The Elements of John Updike is the best study of John Updike's fiction that I have yet read. It is profound and very different from other studies in the depth and attention it pays the author and his writing. I have yet to read another book that so perfectly integrates all the diverse elements of his nature, the poetry, the fiction, the nonfiction, the studious nature and development of his fierce intelligence.

It is a shame that the book is now out-of-print. I hope that it will one day be updated and expanded, or at least reprinted, as it is still very much relevant, despite the fact that it covers only his origin through Couples. Still irreplaceable in its comprehension of the man who is quite possibly America's greatest living author.

By the way, this book is written by Alice and Kenneth Hamilton (Amazon seems to have forgotten one of them).

This book has become one of my favorite golf books ever. It's for anyone who loves the game and it's lore. Some of these stories are hilarious, others are like a good mystery. Finally a classic golf book without a bit of instruction.

This is not just an ordinary children's book from this Pulitzer Prize winning author. It's Updike's fifth children's book. I think it is his best. A delightful alphabet celebrates everyday objects children know and love. In this father and son collaboration, renowned author John Updike's cheery poems and David Updike's direct, playful photographs provide a guide not only to the alphabet but to the charms of the world around us.

The action color photographs are supherb, some of them depicting Updike's grandchildren and Updike himself is pictured on Y for YOU along with all his grandchildren on one page. Twenty-six stunning pictures and poems you have to read and savor: apple, bird, cat, dog, egg, flowers, garbage can, hubcaps,icicles, jam, knot, lamp, mirror, nickel, oatmeal, pie plate, Q-tip, rabbit, shoes and socks, toy, umbrella, vacuum cleaner, window, xylophone, you, and zero. Ordinary words perhaps but the poems and photographs are not! A must read for ages 4-8 but also for the child in all of us.