John Updike - Collected Works (72 books)

* John Updike - Collected Works (72 books)

JOHN UPDIKE (1932–2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, Updike published more than twenty novels, more than a dozen short-story collections, as well as poetry, art and literary criticism and children's books during his career.

Emerging in the late 1950s, Updike became one of the most prolific and stylistically recognizable writers of his generation. His fiction is distinguished by its attention to the concerns, passions, and suffering of average Americans, its emphasis on Christian theology, and its preoccupation with sexuality and sensual detail. His work has attracted significant critical attention and praise, and he is widely considered one of the great American writers of his time. He described his highly distinctive prose style as an attempt "to give the mundane its beautiful due".

Updike first gained wide attention with RABBIT, RUN (1960), the opening novel in what would become the four-volume Rabbit Angstrom series, widely regarded as his major achievement. Tracking the life of a former high-school basketball star from young adulthood to late middle age, the Rabbit novels – including RABBIT REDUX (1971), RABBIT IS RICH (1981), and RABBIT AT REST (1990) – double as an informal social history of postwar America, charting shifts in politics, race relations, consumer culture, and sexual mores. The latter two novels both received the Pulitzer Prize, cementing Updike’s reputation as a chronicler of American life across decades rather than moments.

Alongside the Rabbit books, Updike produced a diverse body of novels that experiment with myth, history, and perspective. Works such as THE CENTAUR (1963), which blends Greek mythology with small-town Pennsylvania realism, and COUPLES (1968), a controversial portrait of suburban sexual entanglement, showcase his willingness to test the boundaries of social realism. Later novels, including THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK (1984) and ROGER’S VERSION (1986), combine satire with theological inquiry, revealing Updike’s sustained interest in belief systems under modern pressure.

Updike was equally distinguished as a short-story writer, publishing regularly in The New Yorker and producing collections such as PIGEON FEATHERS (1962), MUSEUMS AND WOMEN (1972), and TRUST ME (1987). In the short form, his gifts for compression and lyrical description are especially evident, as he explores moments of moral recognition, erotic longing, and spiritual unease.

He also made significant nonfiction contributions, particularly in literary criticism, memoir, and cultural commentary. Among his principal nonfiction works are SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS: MEMOIRS (1989), which offers a candid and introspective account of his personal and professional life, and DUE CONSIDERATIONS (2007), a collection of essays showcasing his critical acumen on literature, art, and society. His volumes of collected art criticism, focusing on both classical and contemporary painters, display a deep sensitivity to visual aesthetics and an ability to translate visual experience into precise, evocative prose.
The following books are in ePUB format unless otherwise noted:

== NOVELS ==

* Brazil (Random House, 2012)
* The Centaur (Random House, 2012)
* The Coup (Random House, 2012)
* Couples (Random House, 2012)
* Gertrude and Claudius (Random House, 2012)
* In the Beauty of the Lilies (Random House, 2012)
* Marry Me: A Romance (Random House, 2012)
* Memories of the Ford Administration (Random House, 2012)
* A Month of Sundays (Random House, 2012)
* Of the Farm (Random House, 2012)
* The Poorhouse Fair (Random House, 2012)
* Rabbit at Rest (Random House, 2012)
* Rabbit is Rich (Random House, 2012)
* Rabbit Redux (Random House, 2012)
* Rabbit, Run (Random House, 2012)
* Roger's Version (Random House, 2012)
* S. (Random House, 2012)
* Seek My Face (Random House, 2012)
* Terrorist (Random House, 2012)
* The Widows of Eastwick (Random House, 2012)
* The Witches of Eastwick (Random House, 2012)
* Toward the End of Time (Random House, 2014)
* Villages (Random House, 2012)

== SHORT STORIES ==

* The Afterlife and Other Stories (Random House, 2012)
* Bech: A Book (Random House, 2012)
* Bech at Bay (Random House, 2008)
* Bech is Back (Random House, 2012)
* Collected Early Stories [ed. Carduff] (Library of America, 2013) – PDF
* Collected Later Stories [ed. Carduff] (Library of America, 2013) – PDF
* The Complete Henry Bech (Penguin, 2009)
* The Early Stories: 1953-1975 (Random House, 2012)
* Licks of Love: Short Stories and a Sequel (Random House, 2012)
* The Maples Stories (Knopf, 2009)
* Museums and Women and Other Stories (Random House, 2012)
* The Music School: Short Stories (Random House, 2012)
* My Father's Tears and Other Stories (Random House, 2012)
* Olinger Stories: A Selection (Knopf, 2014) – PDF
* Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (Random House, 2012)
* Problems and Other Stories (Random House, 2012)
* The Same Door: Short Stories (Random House, 2012)
* Too Far to Go: The Maples Stories (Random House, 2012)
* Trust Me: Short Stories (Random House, 2012)

== POETRY ==

* A Child's Calendar: Poems (Holiday House, 2013)
* Americana and Other Poems (Knopf, 2001)
* The Carpentered Hen and Other Tame Creatures (Knopf, 2012)
* Collected Poems, 1953-1993 (Knopf, 2012)
* Endpoint and Other Poems (Hamish Hamilton, 2009)
* Facing Nature: Poems (Knopf, 2012)
* Midpoint and Other Poems (Knopf, 2012)
* Selected Poems: A New Selection [ed. Carduff] (Knopf, 2015)
* Telephone Poles and Other Poems (Knopf, 2012)
* Tossing and Turning: Poems (Knopf, 2012)

== NON-FICTION, ESSAYS & CRITICISM ==

* Always Looking: Essays on Art [ed. Carduff] (Knopf, 2012)
* Assorted Prose (Random House, 2014)
* Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism (Random House, 2012)
* Golf Dreams: Writings on Golf (Random House, 2012)
* Higher Gossip: Essays and Criticism (Knopf, 2011)
* Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu: On Ted Williams (Library of America, 2010) – PDF
* Hugging the Shore: Essays and Criticism (Random House, 2012)
* Just Looking: Essays on Art (Knopf, 1989) – PDF
* More Matter: Essays and Criticism (Random House, 2012)
* Odd Jobs: Essays and Criticism (Random House, 2012)
* Picked-Up Pieces (Random House, 2012)
* Self-Consciousness: Memoirs (Random House, 2012)
* Still Looking: Essays on American Art (Knopf, 2005) – PDF
* Talk from the Fifties (Lord John Press, 1979) – PDF

== LETTERS & INTERVIEWS ==

* Conversations with John Updike [ed. Plath] (Mississippi, 1994) – PDF
* Selected Letters [ed. Schiff] (Knopf, 2025)

== PLAY ==

* Buchanan Dying: A Play (Random House, 2013)

== EDITOR ==

* Best American Short Stories, 1984 (Houghton Mifflin, 1984) – PDF
* Best American Short Stories of the Century (Houghton Mifflin, 2000) – PDF

== BIBLIOGRAPHY ==

* John Updike: A Bibliography, 1967-1993 [comp. Jack De Bellis] (Greenwood, 1994) – PDF
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