About the Author

John Updike(1932-2009) was born 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 ofThe New Yorker.He is the author of more than sixty books, including collections of short stories, poems, essays, and criticism. His novels won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle, and the Howells Medal, among other honors.

Christopher Carduff is Books Editor of The Wall Street Journal and a former consulting editor at the Library of America. He is the editor of John Updike's posthumous collectionsHigher Gossip- Essays and Criticism,Always Looking- Essays on Art, Selected Poems, and Collected Stories.