Selected Stories

by John Updike

2 cassettes / 3 hours
Read by John Updike


John Updike reads six stories he has selected from the hundred-odd he has published.

"A&P", recounting a moral crisis on the checkout counter, is his most anthologized story.

"Pigeon Feathers," the longest story included, tells of a fourteen-year-old boy's fear of death and the answer he finds.

"The Family Meadow" describes a piece of America, a picnic reunion in New Jersey.

"The Witnesses" and "The Alligators" both deal with love, as felt by a middle-aged man and a fifth-grade boy.

"Separating" recounts the June day when Richard and Joan Maple separate, in front of their four children.

Mr. Updike, when asked to described his method of reading aloud, said "I try to picture the things describes, and to speak the words distinctly, and to let the emotion come through on its own."
The method works beautifully.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories

Audio Cassette

First published November 12, 1985

About the author

John Hoyer Updike was an American writer. Updike's most famous work is his Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest; and Rabbit Remembered). Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest both won Pulitzer Prizes for Updike. Describing his subject as "the American small town, Protestant middle class," Updike is well known for his careful craftsmanship and prolific writing, having published 22 novels and more than a dozen short story collections as well as poetry, literary criticism and children's books. Hundreds of his stories, reviews, and poems have appeared in The New Yorker since the 1950s. His works often explore sex, faith, and death, and their inter-relationships.

He died of lung cancer at age 76.

Reviews

[Olha Khilobok]

Updike is Updike. The one thing he could add to his writings is his actual voice.
God bless audiobooks as long as he did add.

To use his characters' words, "Expressing a strange multitude of things" in a sense of good strangeness.

[Kiel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a cheap purchase and a short listen from an influential author I’ve never read and knew little about. This series is a recording of Updike reading a selection of six of his short stories from among the hundreds he wrote. While there are many deep themes addressed within the stories regarding death and the fear of it, divorce, and religion, I didn’t enjoy any of the stories on the whole, nor Updike’s reading of them. I’ve heard good things about some of his other writings and may give it a shot eventually, but I leave this current selection feeling underwhelmed and unimpressed. 3 hours of portraits of midwestern life using poetic prose that left this listener unsatisfied.

[Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

We all know that John Updike was a brilliant man and respected author. His observations and descriptions of Midwestern life deepened it with use of his poetic prose. But when he read his own works, his keen sense of humor and irony were on great display. Pigeon Feathers is one of my all-time favorite short stories and Updike's reading of it makes me believe that there's still some magic left in this old world.

[Katrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection includes my favorite Updike short story, A & P. The main character's act of rebellion at the end of the story and the realization of "how hard the world was going to be for me hereafter" is brilliant. I love this story and the short story The Alligators. All of these are gems.

[John Machata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good. Updike!

[Danica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some had an interesting spin, but as a whole, not my personal cup of tea.

[Nicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audiobook. He does a good job honing in on small, quiet moments of ordinary, small-town life — sometimes this is beautifully simple and quaint and insightful, and other times it just feels kinda dull

[Susan Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of Updike's short stories that would have been raised to an even higher level if they had been read by a professional actor. I tend to avoid "read by the author" audiotapes because authors generally do not have the voice techniques and phrasing skills to bring the material to life. Audio books are one part performance and one part material. A great performer can raise mediocre material to a high level, and an amature performer can drag the material down, which is what happened in this case. These are exquisitely written stories (even if the dialogue and characters are dated) and are worthy of a better production.

[Matthew Dicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read by Updike himself, the stories are excellent. Pigeons Feathers goes on a little long and can drag a bit, and the Family Meadow is more of a landscape painting in words rather than a true story, but the others are superb. A&P and The Alligators have always been two of my favorite of Updike's stories, and both are included here. An author can learn a great deal about writing by listening to these stories, including how terribly far away from greatness that he or she is.

[Blanca · Rating 5 out of 5]

A&P is the best known story in the collection, but every story holds up to my favorite. Pigeon Feathers is an absolutely earnest story questioning the existence of God from the perspective of a young boy on the cusp of adolescence. A good companion-piece to that story is Fitzgerald's "Absolution". "Separating" is a strong story to end. All around beautiful writing that is as strong as his novels.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Updike's excessively earnest readings may betray the essential subtleties of his stories, but it's pretty pardonable given that he gave us the stories in the first place.

[Christopher Hellstrom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great audio versions from Audible.com

[Adele Emami · Rating 3 out of 5]

the separation
kind of a twisted and complicated ending... was a bit difficult to read but liked it. the way that parent handled the situation and treated their kids

[Susan Strayer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the final realization in Pigeon Feathers but the whole thing was so boring. I know he's a Pulitzer Prize winner but he's not really my style.