These days everybody’s talking bucket lists, but James Mustich has compiled a reference for readers that goes beyond the token click-bait lists. In his 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die: A Life-Changing List (Workman Publishing, 2018—Amazon price $23.79/cloth), Mustich covers a lot of ground but sounds almost apologetic about the volume he chose from John Updike:

“It is hard to name a major twentieth-century American writer more constant than John Updike. His commitment to his art, his puzzling over the knottiness and nobility (and inconstancy) of ordinary love, his apparent wonder at every subject he embraced, and his delight in the vocabulary at his command to describe them—in every aspect, Updike was a paragon of dedication and productivity. His sentences seem to smile with his pleasure in his vocation, and the uniform physical design and typographic consistency of the many volumes he published over a half century demonstrate how he cherished and groomed his appearance as an author in the world. . . .

“The Maples Stories, a collection of eighteen tales written between 1956 and 1994 about a married, then divorced, couple named Joan and Richard Maples, may seem too modest to single out from Updike’s generous oeuvre. Yet considered together, these short stories offer a probing, astute, and often poignant anatomy of a marriage that is remarkable both as a literary testament and a cultural portrait of a tumultuous period in American domestic life. Although Updike portrays the same themes on a much grander scale in his justly acclaimed sequence of Rabbit Angstrom novels, The Maples Stories, in their fleeting intimacy and atmosphere of amorous regret, distill the author’s gift for evoking emotional uncertainty into an exquisitely moving testament.”

It wouldn’t surprise us if more and more people gravitated toward the Maples rather than the Angstroms over time, especially given the more explicit sexuality in the latter.

John Updike’s fictionalized account of his first marriage, Too Far to Go (reissued with new material as The Maples Stories), often has been cited as a good book to read for people coping with the aftermath of divorce. But now someone’s recommending Updike for people considering divorce.

In an article (“10 Books to Read Before Getting Divorced”) written for the Barnes & Noble website, Jeff Somers recommends reading the Rabbit Angstrom novels.

“John Updike was a writer with myriad obsessions, and they all came together in the four-book, decades-in-the-writing saga of flawed but fascinating Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, who attempts to abandon his young family in book one and doesn’t make life any less complicated for himself as the decades rush on. What you end up with is, in large part, one of the most finely-detailed accounts of the ups and downs of a marriage in literary history. Considered as a whole, Rabbit’s race through life offers the sort of minute study of a relationship that will force you to reconsider you own.”

In other words, despite how rocky Rabbit and Janice’s marriage was, they stuck it out. Somehow, their marriage survived, and Somers suggests by including it on this list that a little perspective goes a long way.

The only other fiction on this list of mostly self-help books is Heartburn, by Nora Ephron.

The Guardian published another summer reading list—“Best summer books 2018, as picked by writers and cultural figures – part two”—in which everyone shares their reading agenda for the sun-and-fun months. Updike was mentioned again, but this time not for something light, airy, and Updike clever.

Writer-journalist Julie Myerson (“Living with Teenagers,” Sleepwalking, Something Might Happen), listed Updike’s Rabbit tetralogy as her literal “must-read”:

“Rachel Cusk’s Kudos (Faber) is one of the most astoundingly original and necessary books I’ve ever read. It made me laugh, think and cry. She’s my friend, but I recommend it without apology: I envy anyone who hasn’t read it yet. I was startled, but also very moved, by the almost abrasive directness of Rose Tremain’s memoir Rosie (Chatto & Windus). It did exactly what memoirs ought to do: made me want to rush straight back to her fiction. My ideal holiday (a bit of a fantasy at the moment) would therefore be a fortnight in Rome with all of Tremain on a Kindle, along with John Updike’s Rabbit (Penguin) quartet – which people have been ordering me to read for years – as well as Motherhood (Harvill Secker) by Sheila Heti, which I’ve been hoarding, and Never Anyone But You (Corsair) by the unfailingly brilliant Rupert Thomson.”

When in Rome . . . read John Updike?

The artwork is a detail from a Leon Edler illustration.

Kelley O’Brien, writing for Women.com, posted a list story on the “27 Best TV Shows About Witches” that includes Updike’s three witches from Eastwick.

Not many people watched the series, which starred Joanna Frankel, Katherine Gardener, and Roxanne Torcoletti as the three witches and Paul Gross as Darryl Van Horne, because it was cancelled before it could even finish out the first season. Yet O’Brien ranked Eastwick (2009) ahead of the popular Disney show Once Upon a Time.

“Eastwick is based on the John Updike novel The Witches of Eastwick and follows three witchy friends living in Eastwick who all wish for more excitement in their lives. A mysterious man shows up and that’s where the fun really begins. Don’t forget to check out the movie version too! It’s a classic,” she writes.

But not as classic as the 1983 novel, which explores the dynamics of male-female relationships against the backdrop of the sixties—a novel critic Harold Bloom considers Updike’s best.

In mid-April, when the publicity blitz for the most recent cinematic installment of Fifty Shades of Grey was in full swing, Scoop Whoop tossed off “10 Erotic Novels Other Than ’50 Shades of Grey’ That You Need To Share Your Bed With,” and of course Updike made the list.

Why wouldn’t he? Couples was one of the novels that bridged the gap between the literary and the tawdry, blazing the trail for future writers to candidly describe sexual encounters in their serious fiction.

Parthavee Singh compiled the list for Scoop Whoop, and included:

Beautiful Secret (2015), by Christina Lauren
Inside Madeleine (2014), by Paula Bomer
Women (2014), by Chloe Caldwell
Men in Love (1980), by Nancy Friday
G. (1972), by John Berger
Forever (1975), by Judy Blume
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), by Milan Kundera
Couples (1968), by John Updike
House of Holes (2011), by Nicholson Baker
Lust (1989), by Susan Minot

“Couples by John Updike is a tastefully seductive and graphic representation of love, marriage and adultery. A one of a kind classic, this novel is powerful enough to leave an impact on individuals helping them inspire others to read it too.”

Two seasons ago New York Magazine though John Updike’s The Witches of Eastwick a beachy-keen choice for summer reading. This year, the U.K.-based magazine Stylist seconds the notion.

The magazine included Witches on its list of “Top 100 holiday reads,” noting, of the Updike choice,

“Three divorced women in a Rhode island beach town discover they have beyond-ordinary powers. Their coven is shaken up by the arrival of the mysterious and devil-like Darrell Van Horne. Updike’s novel is far better than the film adaptation, so don’t discount the book if you’ve seen the film.

“Why is it a holiday read? See the beach as a place to conjure storms and mischief.”

For those who are tired of reading Mother’s Day tribute after tribute, here’s a list of bad moms compiled by Tina Jordan and Susan Ellingwood for The New York Times and published, ironically, on May 12, 2018–Mother’s Day:

“8 of the Worst Moms in Literature; Think your mother was harsh? These books will convince you that she deserves a Mother of the Year Award.”

Updike’s Janice Angstrom (Rabbit, Run) makes the list.

“‘Rabbit’ Angstrom’s wife, Janice—often found ‘highball in hand, glued to the television set’—drunkenly allows their infant daughter to drown in the tub.'” There’s a link, too, if you’re a paid subscriber, to the Times‘ Nov. 6, 1960 review of Rabbit, Run by David Boroff, who calls it a “moving and often brilliant novel.”

Rabbit, of course, has to share the blame . . . so I guess that means he could turn up on a bad dad list come Father’s Day.

Pop Sugar released a list of “50 Authors From 50 States — Here’s What to Read From Each of Them,” and to no one’s surprise John Updike was the author from Pennsylvania that they recommended to readers, and Rabbit, Run was the book they specifically named.

“John Updike was born in Reading, PA,” they write (West Reading, actually), “and raised in the nearby town of Shillington. Updike’s childhood in Berks County, PA, later served as the influence for his Rabbit Angstrom tetralogy, including Rabbit, Run.”