Licks of Love. Short Stories and a Sequel, 'Rabbit Remembered'.

First trade edition. 8vo. Pp. [viii], 359, [1]. Mustard yellow cloth boards, lettered in gilt and silver to spine and upper board; pale yellow endpapers. Orange top stain, as issued. Dust jacket art by Chris Ware. Design by the author and Chip Kidd. Original price of $25.00 printed on front flap of dust jacket. Preceded by the privately published Easton Press edition.

A collection of twelve short stories that revisit some of the author's previous locales and characters, including a novella-length coda to his Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom quartet of novels. Title derived from the story in which an American banjo virtuoso demonstrates his 'licks' to an enthralled Soviet audience at the height of the Cold War. Most pieces appeared previously in The New Yorker, while a couple were published in The Atlantic Monthly and Esquire, respectively.

"A touching, elegiac collection of stories about infidelity, about the weight of family, about the dwindling of years... [Updike] works so slowly and carefully that you rarely see the emotional punches coming." –Newsweek