The late John Updike was a virtuoso of both fiction and non-fiction forms. Here is a sampling of his best work.

Rabbit Novels Vol. 1

Rabbit Novels Vol. 2

Due Considerations

Hugging the Shore

John Updike, one of the greatest writers of his generation, died Tuesday at the age of 76. Some remembrances:

Guardian Books

Literary Kicks

Newsweek

Slate

Omnivoracious

The summer I was 17, I worked at a camp in Northeast Ohio, on the Lake Erie shore. I was courting the girl who would later become (and still is) my wife, and many nights we would be up late, watching the slow progress of the oreboats and gazing at the stars over the water. I was on maintenance, and, being the only one who could drive the tractor, I had to get up at five-thirty in the morning and coax the old red Farm-All to life and hook up the homemade, plywood-sided trailer so we could collect the camp's garbage and scrub the latrines. I didn't sleep a lot that summer, but late one night, or more exactly, early one morning while I was enjoying my two hours of rest, the state police knocked on the door of the male staff's dorm.  Continue reading...

I've always wanted to be a scientist. But in the early 1970s, the pull of the hippie movement was strong. After dropping out of the University of Michigan, I married a stoneware potter, and for several years my husband and I made our living traveling throughout Michigan and surrounding states selling his work at art shows.  Continue reading...

The world has lost Nobel-winning playwright Harold Pinter, a master of language and silence. Bloggers remember.

Theater Loop

Parabasis

OC Register: The Arts

Mental Floss

Mark Twain, lauded by many as America's greatest humorist, has a strong online presence nearly a century after his death.

Following the Equator

Mark Twain's Mississippi

The Mark Twain Project

Twain Quotes