Sam Tanenhaus, who interviewed John Updike on many occasions, wrote in a post-election essay that Rabbit Redux “remains the most illuminating and prophetic of modern political novels, though on the surface it seems not about politics at all.”

Here’s the link to “John Updike’s ‘Rabbit Redux’ and White Working-Class Angst,” with thanks to Maria Mogford for drawing our attention to it. The photo is courtesy of The New York Times.

The Witches of Eastwick was the latest “forgotten fiction” to be featured on Why I Really Like This Book, podcasts by Dr. Kate Macdonald, a lecturer in English Studies at Ghent University, Belgium.

She sends the link, hoping it “might be interesting, and hopefully entertaining, to Updike scholars. I’m not one myself,” she says, “but I gave an honest opinion.”

Thanks to Dr. Macdonald, with a reminder:  You don’t have to be an Updike scholar to join the Society!

Conan O’Brien insists he’s running for president in 2012, and recently his blog revived a May 26, 2011 post we all missed about an O’Brien-Updike connection.

Interestingly, both O’Brien and Updike served as president of the Lampoon while at Harvard. But that’s not the connection. Here’s the link. Thanks to member Larry C. Randen for calling it to our attention. And Conan, if you’re reading this, how about commenting here about what Updike told you?

He’s not the first to do so, but British journalist and America’s Got Talent judge Piers Morgan pulled out a copy of John Updike’s Marry Me when it came time to pop the question. His now-fiancé is apparently quite the Updike fan. Here’s the STV article. Thanks to Jack De Bellis for drawing it to our attention.

Member Andrew Moorhouse writes that for his 50th birthday he decided to treat himself and commissioned an artist friend to do a painting of John Updike.

Scholars and avid readers will recognize the image from a Frank Capri photo that adorned the cover of James O. Yerkes’ critical anthology on John Updike and Religion: The Sense of the Sacred and the Motions of Grace (1999). But, of course, the artist took the image into the realm of expressionism.

It’s the third such painting we know of, and seems somehow fitting and full-circle, given how Updike was inspired by art.

Persimmontree Magazine has a regular section called “short takes,” in which writers share small, lyric essays and reminiscences on a topic, and member Jack De Bellis drew our attention to the fact that Volume 16 (Winter 2010-11) features “My Night with John Updike,” by Lynne Davis.

She begins, “It’s not what you’re thinking. It’s not at all what you’re thinking.

“It started with a flyer in the mail room. On cream-colored paper, a man with a teacup. John Updike. He was coming to our rural Midwestern university.

“You could hear the whispers in the hall. ‘John Updike? The JohnUpdike? Why is he coming here?

“I fell in love with him when I was in college, when I read one of his stories in The New Yorker, ‘The Music School.’ His phrasing was lyrical, precise, so delicately balanced—like a Mozart piano concerto.”

To read more, follow this link to Persimmontree Magazine and scroll down for the rest of the story.

Bruce Cordingly, a Seattle resident who attended the First Biennial John Updike Society Conference on October 1-3, 2010, has written an article for The Millions on “John Updike, and the Curious Business of Sustaining Literary Reputations.” Here’s the link.