Picked-Up Pieces

Picked-Up PiecesIn John Updike's second collection of assorted prose he comes into his own as a book reviewer; most of the pieces picked up here were first published in The New Yorker in the 1960s and early '70s. If one word could sum up the young critic's approach to books and their authors it would be "generosity" "Better to praise and share," he says in his Foreword, "than to blame and ban." And so he follows his enthusiasms, which prove both deserving and

" --The New York Times Book Review "Brelinski's page-turning debut is full of humor

shot by a mysterious stranger with a dead man's name

both Type 1 and Type 2

the Field of the Disappeared

While Junior searches for meaning in a doomed world

he takes on not just the role of 'the old crone' but also a journey of discovery about his family

the Village of Book End has whispered that refusing to sign means The End-both for a story and for a life

and quickly coming of age

such as Johann Wilhelm Ritter's erotic self-experiments with a voltaic pile

highlights the importance of transparency and communication in the workplace

A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCEAs the killers target their latest victim

The bestselling author of Dog Sense and Cat Sense explains why living with animals has always been a fundamental aspect of being humanPets have never been more popular