Amazon.com announced on July 22 that The Wylie Agency is publishing 20 books “from some of literature’s most influential authors through its new Odyssey Editions imprint and making them available for sale exclusively in the Kindle Store.”  As the press release notes, this is the first time that any of the titles have been available electronically, and the books will be exclusive to the Kindle Store for two years. Beginning on July 22, customers could download the books for $9.99 from the Kindle store and read them on their Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry, PC, Mac, iPad, and Android devices.

The four Updike titles chosen are probably no surprise to readers and scholars:  Rabbit Run, Rabbit Redux, Rabbit Is Rich, and Rabbit at Rest.

The other titles available are London Fields (Martin Amis), The Adventures of Augie March (Saul Bellow),  Junky (William Burroughs), The Stories of John Cheever, Love Medicine (Louise Erdrich), The Naked and the Dead (Norman Mailer), Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov), The Enigma of Arrival (V.S. Naipaul), The White Castle (Orhan Parmuk), Portnoy’s Complaint (Philip Roth), Midnight’s Children (Salman Rushdie), The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (Oliver Sacks), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Hunter S. Thompson), and Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh). The 20 e-books published by Odyssey Editions carry “an elegant and unified new look designed in collaboration with Enhanced Editions.” Features include: Newly designed jackets and interior typography adhering to the best conventions of book design and reading on Kindle, with Colophon, book covers and series design optimized for the Kindle screen.

“Our goal with Kindle is to make every book ever published, in print or out of print, available in less than 60 seconds,” said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. “Having these prominent and important books available through The Wylie Agency’s Odyssey Editions is another great step toward this goal. We’re excited to let our customers read books like Rabbit Run for the first time ever electronically.”

The Wylie Agency operates internationally from offices in New York and London, and they represent a number of literary estates, among them John Updike’s. Odyssey Editions is the first digitally native literary imprint launch of its kind. “As the market for e-books grows, it will be important for readers to have access in e-book format to the best contemporary literature the world has to offer,” said Andrew Wylie, President of Odyssey Editions. “This publishing program is designed to address that need, and to help e-book readers build a digital library of classic contemporary literature.”

Not everyone is tickled about the new development. Four days after the Odyssey Editions went on sale, An American Editor delivered a scathing attack against Wylie and Agency 5 in an opinion piece titled “The Screw You eBook Deal.”

As of Tuesday, July 6, The Witches of Eastwick, the 1987 film adaptation starring Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer, is available on Blu-ray. Warner Brothers released it as the “B” movie on a Comedy Double Feature that also includes Practical Magic, a 1998 film starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as sisters hexed by a centuries-old curse . . . and zombies.

“The Witches of Eastwick comes off best, wittier, funnier, and it alone is worth the price of the disc,” writes John J. Puccio of DVDTown.com. “The Witches of Eastwick is at its best whenever Nicholson or [Veronica] Cartwright are on the screen,” Puccio writes, though Updike went on record as saying that he thought Pfeiffer was the best. “Maybe it’s not as subtle or elegant as Updike’s book, but it should keep most audiences occupied with its exuberant, supernatural battle of the sexes,” Puccio adds.

Tomorrow, July 1, is the last day to get the advance registration discount for The First Biennial John Updike Society Conference at Alvernia University, Reading, Pa. If you haven’t registered yet, or if you’re undecided, please have another look at the Conference registration form/information.pdf. The first week in October is a great week for fall color in Pennsylvania. Give yourself a four-day weekend. You deserve it.

The typewriter recently auctioned by Christie’s that belonged to John Updike will be displayed at the First Biennial John Updike Society Conference at Alvernia University this October 1-3, thanks to the generosity of the winning bidder.

Californian Steve Soboroff, who collects typewriters once owned by famous authors, bid $4,375 to get the Updike Olympia “electric 65c” typewriter with metal typewriter cart in order to add to a growing collection that includes typewriters once used by Ernest Hemingway, George Bernard Shaw, Jack London, Tennessee Williams, and songwriter John Lennon. Yep, that John Lennon.

So the Updike typewriter is in good company and seems to have found a good home . . . and an owner with a good heart. Soboroff contacted the Society and offered to loan it for the conference, and so it will be exhibited in Reading, Pa. this October for all to see.

An interesting story about Soboroff appears in the Palisadian-Post, which provides details not only about his collection but also about his accomplishments and standing in the community. And like Updike, he has a Harvard connection. He was honored in the past as the Harvard Business School “Business Statesman of the Year” by the Southern California chapter.

John Updike: A Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Materials, 1948-2007, by members Jack De Bellis and Michael Broomfield (Oak Knoll Press, 2007) , is among the 52 books being considered for the 15th ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography, awarded by the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers. It’s the kind of competition of which Updike himself would have approved, with jurors coming together to handle and discuss the books before making their final choice. The prize is awarded every four years.

Dale Estey wrote in Red Room: where the writers are that literary agent Andrew Wylie, who represents the John Updike Estate, is threatening to bypass publishers and sell authors’ e-book rights directly to Google, Amazon, or Apple.

Here’s the story.

Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the New York Times Book Review, got permission to have a sneak peek at the Updike archive now being catalogued at the Houghton. And he talks with Jeffrey Brown about his experience and thoughts about Updike for Art Beat on the PBS NEWS HOUR website.

Here’s the link to “Conversation: Archive Offers Revealing Look at John Updike.”