A Life in Letters

‘It’s all here, Updike in full, and almost none of it has gone stale. An unbroken arc from boyhood to infirmity, a gravity’s rainbow of a life, career and mind’ London Review of Books

A landmark collection from a letter-writer of genius, this is a book which delights and illuminates on every page. It is also a celebration of the life and writing of one of the great American writers of the 20^th century. Filled with comic observations, opinions and personal news, told in the fluid first person of the author himself, these letters form a page-turning ‘life in letters’ like no other.

‘Brilliant, riveting and essential’ The Times

‘Profoundly poignant’ Telegraph

‘His letters are gold’ Financial Times

'John Updike had the prose style of a literary genius . . . Incapable of writing a bad sentence' John Banville, Guardian