Books by John Updike

Portrait of John Updike

John Updike was one of America's most perceptive chroniclers of twentieth‑century life, renowned for his elegant prose and acute observation of ordinary experience. His fiction often explores the complexities of love, faith, and ambition, revealing the tensions between personal desire and social expectation with wit and subtlety.

Across novels, short stories, and essays, Updike's craftsmanship and lyrical style earned him numerous accolades and a lasting place in modern literature. His work continues to captivate readers who appreciate finely tuned language and the quiet drama of everyday existence.

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63 products


  • Rabbit Is Rich

    Random House USA Inc Rabbit Is Rich

    10 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    10 in stock

    £16.20

  • Memories of the Ford Administration

    Random House USA Inc Memories of the Ford Administration

    10 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    10 in stock

    £14.40

  • S.

    Random House USA Inc S.

    10 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    10 in stock

    £14.40

  • Marry Me A Romance

    Random House USA Inc Marry Me A Romance

    10 in stock

    Book SynopsisFrom one of the most gifted American writers of the twentieth century—and the author of the acclaimed Rabbit series: a novel set in 1962 in Greenwood, Connecticut, where Jerry Conant and Sally Mathias are in love and want to get married, though they already are married to others. A diadem of five symmetrical chapters describes the course of their affair as it flickers off and on, and as their spouses react, in a tentative late-summer atmosphere of almost-last chances. For this is, as Jerry observes, “the twilight of the old morality, and there’s just enough to torment us, and not enough to hold us in.”

    10 in stock

    £14.40

  • Random House USA Inc The Centaur

    Out of stock

    Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD AND THE PRIX DU MEILLEUR LIVRE ÉTRANGER   The Centaur is a modern retelling of the legend of Chiron, the noblest and wisest of the centaurs, who, painfully wounded yet unable to die, gave up his immortality on behalf of Prometheus. In the retelling, Olympus becomes small-town Olinger High School; Chiron is George Caldwell, a science teacher there; and Prometheus is Caldwell’s fifteen-year-old son, Peter. Brilliantly conflating the author’s remembered past with tales from Greek mythology, John Updike translates Chiron’s agonized search for relief into the incidents and accidents of three winter days spent in rural Pennsylvania in 1947. The result, said the judges of the National Book Award, is “a courageous and brilliant account of a conflict in gifts between an inarticulate American father and his highly articulate son.”

    Out of stock

    £999.99

  • The Coup

    Random House USA Inc The Coup

    10 in stock

    Book SynopsisA novel that charts the violent events in an imaginary African nation, as told by the colonel and leader of the country—from one of the most gifted American writers of the twentieth century and the author of the acclaimed Rabbit series.What a rich, surprising, and often funny novel.”—The New York Times Book Review“A leader,” writes Colonel Hakim Félix Ellelloû, “is one who, out of madness or goodness, takes upon himself the woe of a people. There are few men so foolish.” Colonel Ellelloû has four wives, a silver Mercedes, and a fanatic aversion—cultural, ideological, and personal—to the United States. But the U.S. keeps creeping into the nation of Kush, and the repercussions of this incursion constitute the events of the novel. Colonel Ellelloû tells his own story—always elegantly, and often in the third person—from an undisclosed location in the South of Fran

    10 in stock

    £14.40

  • Random House Publishing Group PickedUp Pieces

    10 in stock

    a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

    10 in stock

    £18.00

  • Childs Calendar 20th Anniversary Edition A

    Holiday House Inc Childs Calendar 20th Anniversary Edition A

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisNewly available in hardcover, this 20th anniversary edition of a Caldecott Honor classic combines the star power of John Updike and Trina Schart Hyman.Celebrate the little moments that make each month special in this beautiful picture book featuring twelve poems about a family and the turn of the seasons. From the short, frozen days of January, through the light of summer, to the first snowflakes of December, Updike's poems rejoices in the familiar, wondrous qualities that make each part of the year unique. Hyman's award-winning paintings--modeled after her own daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren--depict an interracial family going about the business of their lives throughout the year: sledding in January, watching fireworks in July, and playing in the autumn leaves. Bold and colorful, they're filled with the intricate detail for which her art is famous-- including cameo appearances by the artist and her partner, Jean Aull. Featuring a redesigned cove

    1 in stock

    £14.24

  • Childs Calendar 20th Anniversary Edition A

    Holiday House Inc Childs Calendar 20th Anniversary Edition A

    10 in stock

    Book SynopsisNewly available in paperback, this 20th anniversary edition of a Caldecott Honor classic combines the star power of John Updike and Trina Schart Hyman.Celebrate the little moments that make each month special in this beautiful picture book featuring twelve poems about a family and the turn of the seasons. From the short, frozen days of January, through the light of summer, to the first snowflakes of December, Updike's poems rejoices in the familiar, wondrous qualities that make each part of the year unique. Hyman's award-winning paintings--modeled after her own daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren--depict an interracial family going about the business of their lives throughout the year: sledding in January, watching fireworks in July, and playing in the autumn leaves. Bold and colorful, they're filled with the intricate detail for which her art is famous-- including cameo appearances by the artist and her partner, Jean Aull. Featuring a redesigned cover

    10 in stock

    £8.62

  • Selected Poems of John Updike

    Alfred A. Knopf Selected Poems of John Updike

    10 in stock

    Book SynopsisThe best from Updike’s lifework in poetry: 129 witty and intimate poems that, when read together take on the quality of an autobiography in verse. • By a master of American letters and the author of the acclaimed Rabbit series. “Updike’s gift for close observation, in these poems as elsewhere, is near to supernatural.” —The New York TimesFive decades of witty, intimate, and moving poems—written between 1953 and 2008—with the cumulative force of an unfolding verse-diary. Though John Updike is widely known as one of America’s greatest writers of prose, both his first book and his last were poetry collections, and in the fifty years between he published six other volumes of verse. Now, six years after his death, Christopher Carduff has selected the best from Updike’s lifework in poetry: 129 witty and intimate poems that, when read together in the order of their c

    10 in stock

    £17.95

  • Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu: John Updike on Ted

    The Library of America Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu: John Updike on Ted

    10 in stock

    Book SynopsisOn September 28, 1960—a day that will live forever in the hearts of fans—Red Sox slugger Ted Williams stepped up to the plate for his last at-bat in Fenway Park. Seizing the occasion, he belted a solo home run—a storybook ending to a storied career.In the stands that afternoon was twenty-eight-year-old John Updike, inspired by the moment to make his lone venture into the field of sports reporting. More than just a matchless account of that fabled final game, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu is a brilliant evocation of Williams’ entire tumultuous life in baseball.Now, on the fiftieth anniversary of the dramatic exit of baseball’s greatest hitter, The Library of America presents a commemorative edition of Hub Fans, prepared by the author just months before his death. To the classic final version of the essay, long out-of-print, Updike added an autobiographical preface and a substantial new afterword.

    10 in stock

    £13.50

  • John Updike: Collected Early Stories (LOA #242)

    The Library of America John Updike: Collected Early Stories (LOA #242)

    10 in stock

    Book SynopsisThe 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 story is presented in its final definitive form and in order of composition, established here for the first time.LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

    10 in stock

    £28.12

  • John Updike: Novels 1978-1984: The Coup / Rabbit

    The Library of America John Updike: Novels 1978-1984: The Coup / Rabbit

    10 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    10 in stock

    £40.84

  • John Updike: Novels 1986–1990 (LOA #354): Roger's

    The Library of America John Updike: Novels 1986–1990 (LOA #354): Roger's

    10 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    10 in stock

    £38.00

  • Tusquets Editores Gertrudis y Claudio

    2 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    2 in stock

    £19.83

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