Description
Book SynopsisA page-turning collection of essays and literary criticism on topics ranging from books, writers, poker, cars, faith, and the American libido—from one of the most gifted American writers of the twentieth century and the author of the acclaimed Rabbit series.
[Updike is] one of the best essayists and critics this country has produced in the last century.—The Los Angeles TimesHere Updike considers many books, some in introductions—to such classics as
Walden, The Portrait of a Lady, and
The Mabinogion—and many more in reviews, usually for
The New Yorker. Ralph Waldo Emerson and the five Biblical books of Moses come in for appraisal, along with
Uncle Tom’s Cabin and
The Wizard of Oz.
Contemporary American and English writers—Colson Whitehead, E. L. Doctorow, Don DeLillo, Norman Rush, William Trevor, A. S. Byatt, Muriel Spark, Ian McEwan—receive attentive a
