Author, literary critic and (as the AP describes him) "prolific man of letters and erudite chronicler of sex and divorce, " John Updike died earlier today. The Pulitzer Prize winner was 76 when he lost his battle with lung cancer. Back in the '50s, upon graduating from Harvard, he was offered a position at The New Yorker from E.B. White. His contributions to the magazine are archived online and can be read here. For a time he lived in New York City, but departed for Massachusetts in 1957, saying the city was a "cultural hassle" and filled ith "agents and wisenheimers." The NY Times notes that after moving he said, ''The real America seemed to me 'out there,' too heterogeneous and electrified by now to pose much threat of the provinciality that people used to come to New York to escape.'' more ›

Standing at just under 2 feet tall on a "tower" display stand, and containing around 800 pages -- there's a new book in town! And it's not going to fit in many people's apartments. more ›

In May word was spreading that the famed Gotham Book Mart would be shutting its doors as the owner, Andreas Brown, was forced to pay overdue rent. At that time, the entire contents of the shop ("from rare first-edition John Updike novels to the worn-out oriental rug on the third floor") were sold for $400K at a court-mandated auction. The Post called it an "undignified last chapter for the institution - beloved by the likes of Edward Gorey, J.D. Salinger and Jackie Kennedy Onassis." more ›

(in bookstores Feburary 10th) doesn’t require me to know anything more than his own skewed, skewering version of Hamptons life. more ›

We'd been eyeing the huge book, New Art City, which is about American artists hitting their stride in the mid-20th century New York City. However, we were concerned that at 665 pages, we would throw out our back carrying it back home from the store (or cause UPS to slip a disc) and then it would break out coffee table. John Updike reviewed it this weekend in the NY Times Book Review, and he assuaged our fears: "This is not a coffee-table art book; its illustrations, though numerous, are small, and black-and-white. A dense text rules the textbook-sized pages - 557 of them, not counting notes, acknowledgments and index." The book looks at the famous - Jackson Pollock, David Smith, Willem de Kooning, Joseph Cornell, Andy Warhol, and Donald Judd - and the lesser known - Hans Hofmann, Joan Mitchell, Fairfield Porter, and John Graham. Author Jed Perl will be speaking at a few events here, so it should be interesting if you're at all interested in modern American art. more ›

The MoMA on the new MoMA. The MoMA will has an exhibition of Taniguchi's museum designs through January 2005. Taniguchi's bio from the MoMA. greg.org on what the ticket hikes mean for the MoMA and NYC. The New Yorker's Paul Goldberger writes that the renovation is elegant while John Updike walks through the museum. New York magazine on the making of the new MoMA. more ›

It's the 70s again in Connecticut: Couple-swapping is back! A Berlin, Connecticut was busted for violating the town's ordinances on sexually oriented businesses. The club was charging $60 to enter the club, which is illegal, while couple-swapping is perfectly legal. The club also "allowed alcohol, featured enclosed booths and rooms, and lacked outdoor signs that identified it as a swingers club for adults only" - all violations, according to the AP report (via WNBC). Gotta love suburbia. more ›