Karen Heller, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, posted a piece titled “Send us your nominees for great Pennsylvanians” in response to a Harper poll that placed Ben Franklin at the top of the list, followed by Bill Cosby.

“The list goes downhill from there,” Heller writes, adding that Cosby is “the sole choice who isn’t long dead.

“But Pennsylvania has offered the country so much since the time of Penn and Ben. In the arts, we have Thomas Eakins, Andy Warhol, Mary Cassatt, Frank Furness, James Stewart, Will Smith, three Barrymores, and two splendid Kellys, Gene and Grace.

“In music, Pennsylvania produced Marian Anderson, Oscar Hammerstein, John Coltrane, Stephen Foster, Stan Getz, Sun Ra, Hall and Oates, Gamble and Huff, Pink and Taylor Swift. The state produces terrific writers: John Updike, August Wilson, John O’Hara, muckraking Ida Tarbell, Rachel Carson, Louisa May Alcott, and Margaret Mead. The commonwealth can do funny: W.C. Fields, Tina Fey, and the tonsorially challenged third of the Stooges, Larry Fine.”

She asked readers to move “Toward a better list of great Pennsylvanians.”

Before Adam Begley’s biography of John Updike, could Updike fans have imagined how many mid-year best-of reading lists there are?

Yet another one emerges—this time from The Guardian, offering a round-up of writers and staffers with their picks for summer holiday reading. And Mark Lawson, a Guardian columnist and theater critic, selected Updike as one of his best books.

“Two long-awaited lives that I couldn’t wait until summer to read were Updike by Adam Begley (Harper) – which gives equal weight to my favourite novelist’s life and books and the often eye-watering overlaps between them – and Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life by John Campbell (Jonathan Cape), which achieves an equally impressive balance between policies and peccadillos. Two works that I will read in the summer months are: John Carey’s memoir The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books (Faber) and Philip Hensher’s novel The Emperor Waltz, which, from flicking, seems to continue his bold experiments with form.”

“Best holiday reads 2014 – top authors recommend their favourites”

Jim Higgins, of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, has posted “96 books for your summer reading,” and topping the category titled “12 Editor’s Picks” is Updike, Adam Begley’s “sympathetic but honest biography of the writer, which pays close attention to the ways John Updike frequently transmuted real-life incidents into his fiction.”

Other categories:  “14 Books We’ve Already Liked,” “8 Books for Recent Graduates,” “11 Books by Wisconsin Writers,”  “10 Visiting Writers,” “8 Mysteries and Thrillers,” “5 Pop Culture Books,” “7 Visually Appealing Books,” “18 Books for Children and Teens,” and “5 Books for Baseball Fans.”