The Afterlife and Other Stories - Tapa blanda

The first collection of short stories since 1987 by the author of Brazil revolves around the theme of old age and includes "A Sandstone Farmhouse," the first-prize winner of an O. Henry Award in 1991. Reprint.

SSENTIAL UPDIKE...These tales are elegies for lost youth and receding passions."

--The New York Times

"If one trait can account for John Updike's staying power, it is the man's exquisite grasp of ordinary miracles....With his small mirages, his puddles left by both the heroic and the damned, Updike can turn the simple, misguided efforts of a man into a signature of song."

--The Boston Globe

"MARVELOUSLY MOVING...These tales evoke a certain peace and a definite wonder at what an astonishingly graceful writer Updike is."

--USA Today

"John Updike has rarely written more affectingly, more from the center of his being....This collection is about the passing of generations, and the way that passing leaves people marooned....Reviewing a novel of Vladimir Nabokov in 1964, Mr. Updike said, 'He writes prose the only way it should be written--that is, ecstatically.' That ecstasy is evident on every page of