For those of us who were saddened by John Updike's passing in January, 2009, this final collection of his writing comes as some consolation. Among its many pleasures, Higher Gossip gives us a handful of previously uncollected stories and poems. Updike worked as a reporter early in his career, filing Talk of the Town pieces for the New Yorker, and in the poem "Cafeteria, Mass. General Hospital" he is still on the beat, still telling us what it is like out there. For Updike, "out there" takes in the entire human experience; his close observation of his last days is deeply moving.

Novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet, he was also a consummate critic and essayist. His foreword to The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter, included here, is a delight. Some years ago he co-edited The Best American Short Stories of the Century (best North American stories in English, in fact, since English-Canadian writers are represented), and his foreword for that volume is a master class on short fiction. He was interested in everything, it seems. There are essays on Dutch art and Toni Morrison, snapshots and Einstein, golf and dinosaurs. He had recently updated his "A Poetics of Book Reviewing," and that short essay should be required reading for anyone who comments on a book.

Higher Gossip ends with a reflection on a subject Updike fearlessly tackled, the biggest subject of all, our deep need to comprehend the incomprehensible. "Even in those many works of mine in which religion plays no overt role, mundane events are considered, I like to think, religiously, as worthy of reverence and detailed evocation."

Thank you, Mr. Updike. Farewell.