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  <title><![CDATA[Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism]]></title>
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    <![CDATA[<p>John Updike's sixth collection of essays and literary criticism opens with a skeptical overview of literary biographies, proceeds to five essays on topics ranging from China and small change to faith and late works, and takes up, under the heading &quot;General Consideration&quot;; books, poker, cars, and the American libido. The last, informal section of <em>Due Considerations</em> assembles more or less autobiographical pieces&#8212;reminiscences, friendly forewords, comments on the author&#8217;s own recent works, responses to probing questions.<br/><br/>In between, many books are considered, some in introductions&#8212;to such classics as <em>Walden, The Portrait of a Lady, </em>and <em>The Mabinogion</em>&#8212;and many more in reviews, usually for <em>The New Yorker</em>. Ralph Waldo Emerson and the five Biblical books of Moses come in for appraisal, along with <em>Uncle Tom&#8217;s Cabin </em>and<em> The Wizard of Oz</em>. Contemporary American and English writers&#8212;Colson Whitehead, E. L. Doctorow, Don DeLillo, Norman Rush, William Trevor, A. S. Byatt, Muriel Spark, Ian McEwan&#8212;receive attentive and appreciative reviews, as do Rohinton Mistry, Salman Rushdie, Peter Carey, Margaret Atwood, Gabriel García Márquez, Haruki Murakami, Günter Grass, and Orhan Pamuk. In factual waters, Mr. Updike ponders the sinking of the <em>Lusitania</em> and the &#8220;unsinkable career&#8221; of Coco Chanel, the adventures of Lord Byron and Iris Murdoch, the sexual revolution and the advent of female Biblical scholars, and biographies of Robert Frost, Sinclair Lewis, Marcel Proust, and Søren Kierkegaard.<br/><br/>Reading <em>Due Considerations</em> is like taking a cruise that calls at many ports with a witty, sensitive, and articulate guide aboard&#8212;a voyage not to be missed.</p>]]>
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  <read_at>Wed Jan 09 17:02:05 -0800 2008</read_at>
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    <body><![CDATA[ it's 700 pages of recycled pulp press book reviews by my favorite old white guy with a basketball-jones.<br/><br/>i can't wait to start reading it the next time i wake up in the middle of the night and need a good snooz]]></body>
    
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    <![CDATA[<p>John Updike's sixth collection of essays and literary criticism opens with a skeptical overview of literary biographies, proceeds to five essays on topics ranging from China and small change to faith and late works, and takes up, under the heading &quot;General Consideration&quot;; books, poker, cars, and the American libido. The last, informal section of <em>Due Considerations</em> assembles more or less autobiographical pieces&#8212;reminiscences, friendly forewords, comments on the author&#8217;s own recent works, responses to probing questions.<br/><br/>In between, many books are considered, some in introductions&#8212;to such classics as <em>Walden, The Portrait of a Lady, </em>and <em>The Mabinogion</em>&#8212;and many more in reviews, usually for <em>The New Yorker</em>. Ralph Waldo Emerson and the five Biblical books of Moses come in for appraisal, along with <em>Uncle Tom&#8217;s Cabin </em>and<em> The Wizard of Oz</em>. Contemporary American and English writers&#8212;Colson Whitehead, E. L. Doctorow, Don DeLillo, Norman Rush, William Trevor, A. S. Byatt, Muriel Spark, Ian McEwan&#8212;receive attentive and appreciative reviews, as do Rohinton Mistry, Salman Rushdie, Peter Carey, Margaret Atwood, Gabriel García Márquez, Haruki Murakami, Günter Grass, and Orhan Pamuk. In factual waters, Mr. Updike ponders the sinking of the <em>Lusitania</em> and the &#8220;unsinkable career&#8221; of Coco Chanel, the adventures of Lord Byron and Iris Murdoch, the sexual revolution and the advent of female Biblical scholars, and biographies of Robert Frost, Sinclair Lewis, Marcel Proust, and Søren Kierkegaard.<br/><br/>Reading <em>Due Considerations</em> is like taking a cruise that calls at many ports with a witty, sensitive, and articulate guide aboard&#8212;a voyage not to be missed.</p>]]>
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  <read_at>Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007</read_at>
  <date_added>Mon Dec 03 14:44:33 -0800 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Dec 12 10:45:22 -0800 2007</date_updated>
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    <body><![CDATA[Pretty, pretty good... I found the book reviews and the writings on the history of <em>The New Yorker</em> particularly useful.<br/><br/>]]></body>
    
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      <review>
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    <![CDATA[<p>John Updike's sixth collection of essays and literary criticism opens with a skeptical overview of literary biographies, proceeds to five essays on topics ranging from China and small change to faith and late works, and takes up, under the heading &quot;General Consideration&quot;; books, poker, cars, and the American libido. The last, informal section of <em>Due Considerations</em> assembles more or less autobiographical pieces&#8212;reminiscences, friendly forewords, comments on the author&#8217;s own recent works, responses to probing questions.<br/><br/>In between, many books are considered, some in introductions&#8212;to such classics as <em>Walden, The Portrait of a Lady, </em>and <em>The Mabinogion</em>&#8212;and many more in reviews, usually for <em>The New Yorker</em>. Ralph Waldo Emerson and the five Biblical books of Moses come in for appraisal, along with <em>Uncle Tom&#8217;s Cabin </em>and<em> The Wizard of Oz</em>. Contemporary American and English writers&#8212;Colson Whitehead, E. L. Doctorow, Don DeLillo, Norman Rush, William Trevor, A. S. Byatt, Muriel Spark, Ian McEwan&#8212;receive attentive and appreciative reviews, as do Rohinton Mistry, Salman Rushdie, Peter Carey, Margaret Atwood, Gabriel García Márquez, Haruki Murakami, Günter Grass, and Orhan Pamuk. In factual waters, Mr. Updike ponders the sinking of the <em>Lusitania</em> and the &#8220;unsinkable career&#8221; of Coco Chanel, the adventures of Lord Byron and Iris Murdoch, the sexual revolution and the advent of female Biblical scholars, and biographies of Robert Frost, Sinclair Lewis, Marcel Proust, and Søren Kierkegaard.<br/><br/>Reading <em>Due Considerations</em> is like taking a cruise that calls at many ports with a witty, sensitive, and articulate guide aboard&#8212;a voyage not to be missed.</p>]]>
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  <read_at>Tue Aug 19 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
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  <date_updated>Sun Sep 21 06:43:13 -0700 2008</date_updated>
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    <body><![CDATA[John Updike is one of my very favorite writers and I am specially indebted to Hugging The Shore for introducing me to some of the best books I've read. With Updike's guidance on traversing a crowded (and to me, mostly unfamiliar) literary landscape, I no longer felt limited by the narrow confines of...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/33418807">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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      <review>
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    <![CDATA[Due Considerations]]>
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    <![CDATA[This new collection of John Updike's non-fiction writings includes a delightful preface, 'Everything Considered', in which he tells of his lifelong love affair with words; essays on travel, and on faith; introductions to some of the classics; reviews of lesser known foreign writers and new books by English and American contemporaries; as well as non-fiction topics from the sinking of the Lusitania to Coco Chanel's 'unsinkable career'; tributes to legendary New Yorker figures, and much more. A cruise through the cultural waters of the past decade with as delightful, witty, sensitive and articulate a guide as you could hope for, &quot;Due Considerations&quot; is a voyage not to be missed.]]>
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  <date_updated>Wed Dec 03 01:46:39 -0800 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[How many times have I looked at JU and thought 'I won't like him!'. How wrong can you be]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/39179049]]></url>
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      <review>
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    <![CDATA[Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism]]>
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  <average_rating>3.89</average_rating>
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    <![CDATA[<p>John Updike's sixth collection of essays and literary criticism opens with a skeptical overview of literary biographies, proceeds to five essays on topics ranging from China and small change to faith and late works, and takes up, under the heading &quot;General Consideration&quot;; books, poker, cars, and the American libido. The last, informal section of <em>Due Considerations</em> assembles more or less autobiographical pieces&#8212;reminiscences, friendly forewords, comments on the author&#8217;s own recent works, responses to probing questions.<br/><br/>In between, many books are considered, some in introductions&#8212;to such classics as <em>Walden, The Portrait of a Lady, </em>and <em>The Mabinogion</em>&#8212;and many more in reviews, usually for <em>The New Yorker</em>. Ralph Waldo Emerson and the five Biblical books of Moses come in for appraisal, along with <em>Uncle Tom&#8217;s Cabin </em>and<em> The Wizard of Oz</em>. Contemporary American and English writers&#8212;Colson Whitehead, E. L. Doctorow, Don DeLillo, Norman Rush, William Trevor, A. S. Byatt, Muriel Spark, Ian McEwan&#8212;receive attentive and appreciative reviews, as do Rohinton Mistry, Salman Rushdie, Peter Carey, Margaret Atwood, Gabriel García Márquez, Haruki Murakami, Günter Grass, and Orhan Pamuk. In factual waters, Mr. Updike ponders the sinking of the <em>Lusitania</em> and the &#8220;unsinkable career&#8221; of Coco Chanel, the adventures of Lord Byron and Iris Murdoch, the sexual revolution and the advent of female Biblical scholars, and biographies of Robert Frost, Sinclair Lewis, Marcel Proust, and Søren Kierkegaard.<br/><br/>Reading <em>Due Considerations</em> is like taking a cruise that calls at many ports with a witty, sensitive, and articulate guide aboard&#8212;a voyage not to be missed.</p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2007</published>
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    <rating>4</rating>
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  <read_at>Wed Mar 18 18:37:32 -0700 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Thu Jan 29 09:02:50 -0800 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Mar 18 18:37:32 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Whatever he writes, this legend was such an affable, accessible person in prose...I feel like I'm chatting with him when I read the various essays...and it makes me want to read more, brush up on my grammar and vocabulary, and try to love liturature just as much as he did.  It's really a joy...and I...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/44753063">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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    <body><![CDATA[Like a banquet, too rich to consume everything, but the essays on literary biography alone are worth it: Byron, Kierkegaard, Proust, Frost, Sinclair Lewis, John O'Hara, Iris Murdock. Also dipped into pieces on Edward Gorey and Nathaiel Hawthornee, Czeslaw Milosz and Orhan Pamuk. Whew! Think I overat...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11336725">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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    <![CDATA[&#8220;A drop of truth, of lived experience, glistens in each.&#8221; This is how John Updike, one of the world&#8217;s most acclaimed novelists, modestly describes his nonfiction work, the brilliant and graceful essays and criticism he has written for more than five decades. <em>Due Considerations</em> is his sixth collection, and perhaps the most moving, stylish, and personal volume yet. Here he reflects on such writers and works as Emerson, <em>Uncle Tom&#8217;s Cabin</em>, Colson Whitehead, <em>The Wizard of Oz,</em> Don DeLillo, <em>The Portrait of a Lady</em>, Margaret Atwood, <em>The Mabinogion</em>, and Proust. Updike also provides a whimsical and insightful list of &#8220;Ten Epochal Moments in the American Libido,&#8221; from Pocahontas and John Smith to Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky; muses on how the practice of faith changes but doesn&#8217;t disappear; and shares his reaction to the attacks on 9/11 (in Brooklyn that day, &#8220;Freedom, reflected in the street&#8217;s diversity and quotidian ease, felt palpable&#8221;). <em>Due Considerations</em> proves that John Updike is, as noted in <em>The Boston Globe</em>, &#8220;our greatest critic of literature.&#8221;<br/><br/><strong><u><br/>Praise for <em>Due Considerations</em></u></strong>:<br/><br/>A <em>New York Times</em> Notable Book<br/><br/>&#8220;The prose is clean, elegant, exquisitely calibrated. . . . [Updike is] one of the best essayists and critics this country has produced in the last century.&#8221;<br/><em>&#8211;Los Angeles Times Book Review</em><br/><br/>&#8220;Updike&#8217;s scope is rather breathtaking. . . . When I do not know the subject well&#8211;as in his finely illustrated art reviews of Bruegel, Dürer and Goya&#8211;I learn much from what Updike has to impart. When he considers an author I love, like Proust or Czeslaw Milosz, I often find myself appreciating familiar things in a new way.&#8221;<br/>&#8211;Christopher Hitchens, <em>The New York Times Book Review</em><br/><br/>&#8220;With his pack-rat curiosity . . . his prodigious memory and attendant knack for choosing the &#8216;just-right&#8217; fact or quote, and his ever-present astonishment at both the stupidity and genius on display wherever he looks, Updike is in many ways an ideal critic. . . . It is a privilege to be in the company of this wonderfully American voice.&#8221;<br/><em>&#8211;Rocky Mountain News<br/></em><br/>&#8220;Updike knows more about literature than almost anyone breathing today. . . . He's beyond knowledgeable&#8211;he makes Google look wanting.&#8221;<br/>&#8211;<em>Baltimore Sun</em><br/><br/>&#8220;Provocative and incisive . . . This volume reminds us that [Updike&#8217;s] prose sets our literary bar very high indeed.&#8221;<br/><em>&#8211;The Charlotte Observer</em><br/><br/>&#8220;Updike offers an effortless mastery of form and content.&#8221;<br/><em>&#8211;The Boston Globe</em>]]>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism]]>
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    <![CDATA[<p>John Updike's sixth collection of essays and literary criticism opens with a skeptical overview of literary biographies, proceeds to five essays on topics ranging from China and small change to faith and late works, and takes up, under the heading &quot;General Consideration&quot;; books, poker, cars, and the American libido. The last, informal section of <em>Due Considerations</em> assembles more or less autobiographical pieces&#8212;reminiscences, friendly forewords, comments on the author&#8217;s own recent works, responses to probing questions.<br/><br/>In between, many books are considered, some in introductions&#8212;to such classics as <em>Walden, The Portrait of a Lady, </em>and <em>The Mabinogion</em>&#8212;and many more in reviews, usually for <em>The New Yorker</em>. Ralph Waldo Emerson and the five Biblical books of Moses come in for appraisal, along with <em>Uncle Tom&#8217;s Cabin </em>and<em> The Wizard of Oz</em>. Contemporary American and English writers&#8212;Colson Whitehead, E. L. Doctorow, Don DeLillo, Norman Rush, William Trevor, A. S. Byatt, Muriel Spark, Ian McEwan&#8212;receive attentive and appreciative reviews, as do Rohinton Mistry, Salman Rushdie, Peter Carey, Margaret Atwood, Gabriel García Márquez, Haruki Murakami, Günter Grass, and Orhan Pamuk. In factual waters, Mr. Updike ponders the sinking of the <em>Lusitania</em> and the &#8220;unsinkable career&#8221; of Coco Chanel, the adventures of Lord Byron and Iris Murdoch, the sexual revolution and the advent of female Biblical scholars, and biographies of Robert Frost, Sinclair Lewis, Marcel Proust, and Søren Kierkegaard.<br/><br/>Reading <em>Due Considerations</em> is like taking a cruise that calls at many ports with a witty, sensitive, and articulate guide aboard&#8212;a voyage not to be missed.</p>]]>
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  <published>2007</published>
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