Book Description
The third and fourth novel in John Updike’s acclaimed quartet of Rabbit books–now in one marvelous volume.

RABBIT IS RICH
Winner of the American Book Award and
the National Book Critics Circle Award

“Dazzlingly reaffirms Updike’s place as master chronicler of the spiritual maladies and very earthly pleasure of the Middle-American male.”
–Vogue

“A splendid achievement!”
–The New York Times


RABBIT AT REST
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and
the National Book Critics Circle Award

“Brilliant . . . It must be read. It is the best novel about America to come out of America for a very, very long time.”
–The Washington Post Book World

“Powerful . . . John Updike with his precision’s prose and his intimately attentive yet cold eye is a master.”
–The New York Times Book Review ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Masterpiece(s) ...
I reread Rabbit Run and Redux after 25+ years and was so glad I did.I remembered enjoying them way back in college, but probably didn't "get" them the way I do at age 51.I've since been reading all of Updike's novels and short stories ... he's an American master and the Rabbit novels more than prove it.

God's Gift to Humankind
These Rabbit books may not rank by academic standards with the likes of James Joyce or Marcel Proust, but by any other standard, they may be said to be the absolute best there is. Updike can be unsatisfying - there are pieces that I have had trouble getting through, but one comes to accept the fact that writers run in streaks like baseball players. In this series, Updike was having one of those incredibly productive 'seasons', and as a result we have this rich, hilarious, moving set of books which improve from volume to volume. By the time one gets to "Rabbit Is Rich," Updike is writing at his best. What is so great here is that one can live in Rabbit's world with him, especially if you remember the Carter years, the arrival on these shores of Toyota, and the odd sense of anxiety that grew in the land as a result of that and other signs of national decay. Updike sees it all. Rabbit is rich, but Rabbit is not happy. His sex life isn't what it used to be, but he still gets a kick out of looking at women's breasts, enjoys contemplating the color of a stranger's body hair, can't help noticing little perfections and imperfections on his daughter-in-laws legs. His disappointments preoccupy him, but his memory of moments of happiness is keen, so we bask in his nostalgia. Rabbit is especially hilarious on the subject of America's youth, especially that of his son, who has bad taste in just about everything. Rabbit plays the maimed hero, triumphant yet oddly unmanned. ... Read more

Book Description
The first and second novels in John Updike’s acclaimed quartet of Rabbit books–now in one marvelous volume.

RABBIT, RUN

“Brilliant and poignant . . . By his compassion, clarity of insight, and crystal-bright prose, [Updike] makes Rabbit’s sorrow his and out own.”
–The Washington Post

“Precise, graceful, stunning, he is an athlete of words and images. He is also an impeccable observer of thoughts and feelings.”
–The Village Voice


RABBIT REDUX

“ ‘Great in love, in art, boldness, freedom, wisdom, kindness, exceedingly rich in intelligence, wit, imagination, and feeling–a great and beautiful thing . . .’ these hyperboles (quoted from a letter written long ago by Thomas Mann) come to mind after reading John Updike’s Rabbit Redux.”
–The New York Times Book Review

“Updike owns a rare verbal genius, a gifted intelligence and a sense of tragedy made bearable by wit. . . .A masterpiece.”
–Time ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The best edition for these novels
Twenty years from now, the Rabbit novels will be one of a host of books read in college gender studies classes to represent the postwar alteration of American marriage and family. It is rather amazing to read of cocktail-swilling couples seeing society dropouts appear on the scene, and then adopting some of the more selfish behaviors for their own. Also, the frank depictions of male-female lives--the various restricting gender roles, is illuminating. I personally found it quite remarkable to read the depictions of life from the early '60s onward--people riding the bus, when divorce was still shocking and far more damaging, how the hippie movement filtered into the middle American lives and tempted men and women to move on.

These are classic American novels, capturing the mood and sentiment in the way only the best fiction can: so that it is all "made up" by the author, but feels realer than reality. These novels are models of realist fiction, my favorite kind. ... Read more