"PICKED-UP PIECES is to read, to ponder to enjoy; once read, a friend to have on the shelf for the pleasures of revisiting"-PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

"The old, perhaps toothless saw, that the novelist is not necessarily a good critic any more than the drunk is a good bartender is certainly disproved by...John Updike, who is a reviewer of extraordinary grace, clarity, amiability and of course humor".

KIRKUS REVIEWS

"The critic and the poet in him...are at no odds with the novelist" George Steiner, THE NEW YORKER

"The best novelist critic now is writing... Brilliant. Gentle self-deprecating yet sure of his view, John Updike is a graceful, inventive, joyous and affectionate writer" Doris Grumbach, THE WASHINGTON POST.