Wednesday, January 28, 2009

John Updike R.I.P.

John Updike passed away yesterday. He was seventy-six. His career spanned seven decades and provided American letters with an incredible portfolio of novels, short stories, poems, essays, and criticism. The prodigious body of work is schockingly impressive, but even more so for me, is his position as a beacon for a life lived engaged with thoughts and books.

I was fortunate to attend an Updike talk last year. My reflections, as well as a list of notable Updike books, can be found here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

An author and fan pays tribute to Updike and inlcudes a very appropriate poem from a forthcoming book by Updike.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/opinion/29updike.html

Anonymous said...

John Updike's conventional wisdom seems to have affected a lot of people -- I see little quotes of his all over