Writer Daniel Clausen posted a review of Updike’s 40 Stories on Goodreads that was more a personal story of reading and engaging with a text than it was a standard review . . . and, like Updike’s stories, the introspective meandering made it more interesting. Clausen confesses to having a hard time concentrating back in 2021 when he read the stories. “I remembered the story ‘The A&P’ from long ago and thought I might try 39 more stories by John Updike. I would read them in various locales of Nagasaki. The book itself was in my university library. Its pages were brown and yellowing. I was busy that semester, which is why I had trouble concentrating.

“I’m sorry. I’m lying. Let me start over. I had started a new job at the university, and I was gripped with anxiety. Would I be good at my new job? Would the coronavirus ever end? What would I do now that I was almost forty? Would I be able to finish my novel?”

Clausen is the author of a collection of short stories and essays, Something to Stem the Diminishing (2015).