John Updike life and biography

John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic.

After moving from Harvard and Oxford to a staff position on The New Yorker magazine, John Updike turned his talent and brainy pedigree into a successful 50-year career as a novelist, essayist and critic. He is best known for his "Rabbit" book series (beginning with Rabbit, Run in 1960), following college basketball star Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom into a confused middle and old age in late-20th-century America. Two books in the series, Rabbit is Rich (1981) and Rabbit at Rest (1990), won the Pulitzer Prize. The "Rabbit" books, along with frankly sexual novels like Couples (1968), established Updike as a sophisticated reporter on modern middle-class tragedy. Prolific as all get-out, Updike also wrote hundreds of short stories and poems to go along with his 27 novels and his steady stream of essays and book reviews; in 1997 he even engineered a group-written mystery story on the Internet. His books include The Centaur (1963), Bech: A Book (1970); Hugging the Shore (1983, essays); The Witches of Eastwick (1984); Collected Poems 1953-1993 (1993); and Terrorist (2006).

Updike wrote four "Rabbit" novels: Rabbit, Run (1960); Rabbit Redux (1971); Rabbit is Rich (1981); and Rabbit At Rest (1990). He also wrote an added novella, Rabbit Remembered, in 2001... Updike, like humorists Conan O'Brien and Robert Benchley, edited the comedy magazine The Harvard Lampoon while a student at the school... Updike married Mary Entwisted Pennington in 1953. They separated in 1974 and were divorced in 1976. They had four children: David, Michael, Miranda, and Elizabeth... Updike married Martha Bernhard in 1977, and they remained married until his death in 2009.

Rabbit novels

(1960) Rabbit, Run
(1971) Rabbit Redux
(1981) Rabbit Is Rich
(1990) Rabbit At Rest
(1995) Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels
(2001) Rabbit Remembered (a novella in the collection Licks of Love)

Bech books

(1970) Bech, a Book
(1982) Bech Is Back
(1998) Bech at Bay
(2001) The Complete Henry Bech

Buchanan books

(1974) Buchanan Dying (a play)
(1992) Memories of the Ford Administration (a novel)

Eastwick books

(1984) The Witches of Eastwick
(2008) The Widows of Eastwick

The Scarlet Letter Trilogy

(1975) A Month of Sundays
(1986) Roger's Version
(1988) S.

Other novels

(1959) The Poorhouse Fair
(1963) The Centaur
(1965) Of the Farm
(1968) Couples
(1977) Marry Me
(1978) The Coup
(1994) Brazil
(1996) In the Beauty of the Lilies
(1997) Toward the End of Time
(2000) Gertrude and Claudius
(2002) Seek My Face
(2004) Villages
(2006) Terrorist

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