The John Updike Audio Collection

Name: The John Updike Audio Collection
Brand: Harper Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: John Updike
ISBN: 9780060754167

Author: John Updike

Narrator: John Updike

Unabridged: 5 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 02/24/2004

Categories: Fiction, Classic, Literary Fiction, Nonfiction, Literary Collections

Synopsis

The extraordinarily evocative stories depict the generation born in a small-town America during the Depression and growing up in a world where the old sexual morality was turned around and material comforts were easily had. Yet, as these stories reflect so accurately, life was still unsettling, and Updike chronicles telling moments both joyful and painful. The texts are taken from his recent omnibus, The Early Stories, 1953-1975.In describing how he wrote these stories in a small, rented, smoke-filled office in Ipswitch, Massachusetts, he says, ""I felt that I was packaging something as delicately pervasive as smoke, one box after another, in that room, where my only duty was to describe reality as it had come to me -- to give the mundane its beautiful due.""

About John Updike

John Updike was born in 1932, in Shillington, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Harvard College in 1954, and spent a year in Oxford, England, at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. From 1955 to 1957 he was a member of the staff of The New Yorker, and since 1957 has lived in Massachusetts. He is the author of fifty-odd previous books, including twenty novels and numerous collections of short stories, poems, and criticism. His fiction has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the American Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Rosenthal Award, and the Howells Medal.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jim on May 06, 2017

Well narrated by several voices including that of the author who also reads the introduction. I've heard a lot about Updike over the years & read a little back in school. He's a good writer & all of these short stories show that. He can paint characters, scenes, & evoke emotions well, but I didn't r......more

Goodreads review by Camille on June 08, 2009

My husband and I listened to this collection on another road trip. I actually fell asleep for a few, but I'm still going to call it "read." =) I loved "A&P" when I was in school, so I was expecting a lot more of that sort. But, come to find out, "A&P" seemed kind of a fluke compared to Updike's usual......more

Goodreads review by Tim on February 29, 2020

Jane Alexander and Edward Herrmann are perfect choices to narrate Updike stories, with their proper Yankee voices and inflections. They know just how to read this great writer's work, and do an even better job than Updike himself, who reads a few of them also, which is not to say that he is a weak n......more

Goodreads review by Danielle on September 13, 2011

This one was hit and miss for me. You'd think it would be a little thrilling to hear such an iconic author read his own stories, but Updike has one of the most soporific voices imaginable (dangerous when listening to this book in the car). He wasn't the only reader, so that was a minor qualm. My big......more

Goodreads review by Ken on April 04, 2025

Right off, I am a big John Updike fan. I have read just about everything he wrote and there are novels of his that are in my top 20 but his short stories are probably what I love best. I could argue with the selections here which I believe feature mostly earlier work. I’ve heard some of these before......more