Skip to Content
You may be using an older version of the Adobe Flash Player. To enjoy multimedia content on WGBH.org, please click here to upgrade to the latest version of the free Flash player.

Tribute to John Updike

June 1, 2009
Nicholson Baker writer, critic
Stephen Bergman writer, psychiatrist
Anne Bernays writer
Charles McGrath editor, writer
William H. Pritchard professor, English, Amherst College
Christopher Lydon former radio host, The Connection
Elizabeth Updike Cobblah daughter, John Updike

Authors Nicholson Baker, Samuel Shem (pen-name of Dr. Stephen Bergman), and Anne Bernays; editor and journalist Charles McGrath; critic and scholar William Pritchard; and family members paid tribute to author John Updike, who passed away on January 27, 2009 at the age of 76. Radio and Internet host Christopher Lydon moderates.

John Updike was an American writer and critic, celebrated for his use of literary realism and his treatment of, as he put it, "the American small town, Protestant middle class". Updike was most famous for his series of novels about the character Rabbit Angstrom, a former high school basketball star. He received the Pulitzer Prize for two of those novels, Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest.

This program is presented in conjunction with PEN New England.

WGBH
John F. Kennedy Library Foundation
Image of Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization
Author: Nicholson Baker
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (2008)
Binding: Hardcover, 576 pages
Image of The Fermata
Author: Nicholson Baker
Publisher: Vintage (1995)
Binding: Paperback, 320 pages
Image of The Mezzanine
Author: Nicholson Baker
Publisher: Vintage (1990)
Binding: Paperback, 135 pages
Image of The Anthologist: A Novel
Author: Nicholson Baker
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (2009)
Binding: Hardcover, 256 pages
Image of Vox
Author: Nicholson Baker
Publisher: Vintage (1993)
Binding: Paperback, 176 pages
Image of The Size of Thoughts: Essays and Other Lumber
Author: Nicholson Baker
Publisher: Vintage (1997)
Binding: Paperback, 368 pages
Image of Checkpoint: A Novel
Author: Nicholson Baker
Publisher: Vintage (2005)
Binding: Paperback, 128 pages
Image of U and I: A True Story
Author: Nicholson Baker
Publisher: Vintage (1992)
Binding: Paperback, 192 pages
Image of Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper
Author: Nicholson Baker
Publisher: Vintage (2002)
Binding: Paperback, 384 pages
Image of Vintage Baker
Author: Nicholson Baker
Publisher: Vintage (2004)
Binding: Paperback, 208 pages
Image of The Spirit of the Place
Author: Samuel Shem
Publisher: Kent State University Press (2008)
Binding: Hardcover, 334 pages
Image of The House of God: The Classic Novel of Life and Death in an American Hospital
Author: Samuel Shem
Publisher: Dell (2003)
Binding: Paperback, 416 pages
Image of Mount Misery
Author: Samuel Shem M.D.
Publisher: Ballantine Books (2003)
Binding: Paperback, 576 pages
Author: Samuel Shem M.D.
Publisher: Dell (1986)
Binding: Mass Market Paperback, pages
Image of We Have to Talk : Healing Dialogues Between Men and Women
Author: Janet Surrey, Samuel Shem, Stephen Bergman
Publisher: Basic Books (1999)
Binding: Paperback, 238 pages
Image of Trophy House: A Novel
Author: Anne Bernays
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (2007)
Binding: Paperback, 272 pages
Image of What If?  Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers (3rd Edition)
Author: Pamela Painter, Anne Bernays
Publisher: Longman (2009)
Binding: Paperback, 464 pages
Author: Anne Bernays
Publisher: Scribner Book Company (1986)
Binding: Paperback, 343 pages
Author: Anne Bernays
Publisher: UPNE (1997)
Binding: Paperback, 287 pages
Image of Back Then: Two Literary Lives in 1950s New York
Author: Justin Kaplan, Anne Bernays
Publisher: Harper Perennial (2003)
Binding: Paperback, 320 pages
Image of On Poets and Poetry
Author: William H. Pritchard
Publisher: Swallow Press (2009)
Binding: Paperback, 272 pages
Image of Updike: America's Man of Letters
Author: William H. Pritchard
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press (2005)
Binding: Paperback, 350 pages
Image of English Papers: A Teaching Life
Author: William H. Pritchard
Publisher: Graywolf Press (1995)
Binding: Hardcover, 216 pages
Image of Under Criticism: Essays For William H. Pritchard
Author: David Sofield
Publisher: Ohio University Press (1998)
Binding: Hardcover, 329 pages