John Updike, página 3 de 10

In an evolving relationship between two women - interviewer and interviewee - the women move in and out of the roles of daughter and mother, therapist and patient, predator and prey, annunciatory ang

In May 2005 Penguin will publish 70 unique titles to celebrate the company's 70th birthday. The titles in the Pocket Penguins series are emblematic of the renowned breadth of quality of the Penguin list and will hark back to Penguin founder Allen Lane's vision of good books for all.

Charles Lindsay's photographs offer a humorous and inquisitive foray into the hazards of lost golf balls - rough, woods, bunkers and wetlands - as well as unexpected encounters with wildlife on and off the green. An avid golfer, he photographs his way to the heart of the matter with a light touch and an eye for telling details. In the process he discovers balls ravaged by golfers, 'gators and foxes. Lindsay even comes face to face with what is believed to be the world's oldest golf ball - unearthed in a cellar in the Netherlands alongside a primitive club - and the infamous spot in the tall grass where Tiger Woods lost a ball that cost him the British Open. There are photographs from golf courses all over the world. The Foreword by John Updike is a celebration of golf and nature and why the two are not always compatible. A humorous anecdote by Greg Norman and quotes from other well-known golfers and celebrities also appear throughout the book.

Owen Mackenzie's life story abounds with sin and seduction, domesticity and debauchery. After growing up in the small town of Willow, Owen marries the elegant and remote Phyllis, his college girlfriend. But this soon leads to his first betrayal and he abandons his reserve, embarking on a series of affairs and sexual encounters in New England and as far afield as Las Vegas, Nevada. This is America during the revolutionary sixties and seventies, and Owen's profession as a computer programmer does not shelter him from the era's reckless appetites.

Owen Mackenzie's life story abounds with sin and seduction, domesticity and debauchery. His marriage to his college sweetheart is quickly followed by his first betrayal and he embarks upon a series of affairs. His pursuit of happiness, in a succession of small towns from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts, brings him to the edge of chaos, from which he is saved by a rescue that carries its own fatal price.

Roger Lambert, profesor universitario de Teología, recibe un día en su despacho a Dale Kohler, un joven informático que asegura tener una noticia extraordinaria. Está buscando evidencias científicas de que Dios existe y se esta manifestando. El paradojico debate sobre la existencia de Dios que mantiene con Dale Kohler no es mas que el principio de una serie de cambios en la vida de Roger, que vera como las relaciones que mantiene con su mujer Esther y con la hija de su medio hermana, Verna Ekelof, haran temblar los cimientos de su existencia.

La parroquia de una población de Nueva Inglaterra tiene como pastor episcopaliano al reverendo Tom Marshfield, un hombre ingenioso, inteligente y encantador. El problema de Marshfield es que le gustan mucho las mujeres, tanto como para saltarse sus obligaciones como ministro de la Iglesia y tener aventuras con sus feligresas. ¿Es posible reformar a un cura mujeriego capaz de utilizar la religion como un instrumento para justificar sus acciones? Un mes de domingos es una profunda y, al mismo tiempo, irreverente novela, en la que John Updike plantea una serie de dilemas e interrogantes en torno a la religion en el seno de la sociedad norteamericana, sobre todo en relacion con el sexo. Escrita en un tiempo record y publicada originalmente en 1975, Un mes de domingos se convertiria con el paso del tiempo en la primera novela de una brillante trilogia conocida como La letra escarlata, en referencia al clasico de Nathaniel Hawthorne, del cual Updike partio para analizar incisivamente la dualidad entre espiritu y carne, y las dificultades intrinsecas para conciliar ambos aspectos de la naturaleza humana.

El día de verano en que se celebra la feria organizada por un pequeño asilo de Nueva Jersey es la jornada más importante del año para sus ancianos y enfermos residentes. Se trata de un acontecimiento que anualmente organizan con mucha ilusion para vender a los vecinos de la pequeña poblacion los productos que han hecho ellos mismos. Sin embargo, parece que en esta ocasion las cosas no se van a desarrollar como se habian planificado en un principio. A lo largo del dia, los extraordinariamente cercanos personajes de La feria del asilo se desnudan ante nosotros y nos desvelan sus anhelos, sus esperanzas, sus creencias y sus angustias, mostrandonos su desarmante humanidad. La primera novela publicada por Updike, una tragicomica fabula sobre la compasion y la comprension, prefigura ya muchos de los temas, los ambientes y los caracteres que seran recurrentes a lo largo de toda su trayectoria narrativa. Una excelente oportunidad para recuperar las raices de un referente de la literatura estadounidense.

Golpe de estado, fábula política sobre un país africano imaginario en el que ha sido implantada una revolución de corte marxista e islámico y que se debate entre una sequía pertinaz y la insidiosa infiltracion del imperialismo americano, es una magistral obra narrativa en la que John Updike, con audacia imaginativa, virtuosismo estilistico y aires de gran comedia burlesca, escarnece las antitesis politicas del mundo de hoy y nos ofrece una lucida y comica reflexion acerca de las formas del poder despotico. Con Golpe de estado, Updike, el mas brillante narrador norteamericano de las ultimas decadas, ha creado una magistral comedia de absurda yuxtaposicion cultural, una burlesca parodia de las antitesis ideologicas en que se debate el mundo moderno con un gran despliegue de erudicion geografica, teologica e historica que recuerda con frecuencia la extraordinaria capacidad creadora de otro gran prosista moderno: Vladimir Nabokov.

n the small town of Pierce Junction adultery is the popular pastime and pillow talk the common currency. Martin knows the women he hasn't yet seduced hold his attention for the longest, and Winifred, married to his own wife's lover, stirs him in ways he never expects. United by the theme of love, the writings in the Great Loves series span over two thousand years and vastly different worlds. Readers will be introduced to love's endlessly fascinating possibilities and extremities: romantic love, platonic love, erotic love, gay love, virginal love, adulterous love, parental love, filial love, nostalgic love, unrequited love, illicit love, not to mention lost love, twisted and obsessional love…

Nothing in his previous life could have prepared Colonel Hakim Felix Ellellou for his new role as the President of Kush. Neither the French army nor his American university provided a grounding in the subtle skills of revolutionary dictatorship. Still less did they expect him to acquire four wives!

Middle-aged, brilliant and bored, Roger Lambert is a professor of Divinity at a New England university. Firmly convinced that religious belief can only be justified by recourse to pure faith, he is dismissive when visited by a gangling student who claims, with evangelical zeal, that computer technology is on the brink of proving the existence of God. But when his unhappy wife flings herself into an affair with the younger man, and Roger's faith in his own placid life is thrown into question. With his marriage close to collapse, he finds himself increasingly drawn to his own half-niece, the nineteen-year-old Verna, in this cunning and comic exploration of religion, uncertainty and passion.

In a moment of sudden inspiration Sarah Worth - S - has walked out on her husband to join the Ashram Arhat. Famous for his transcendent wisdom and divine immobility, the Arhat has transferred his ahram from India to Arizona, where he and his enthusiastic entourage are attempting to make the desert fruitful.