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Basic Bech

Aug 17, 2025 4:15 PM

Author:John Updike

Basic Bech

Basic Bech combines two classic titles -- Bech: A Book and Bech is Back -- from one of John Updike's most beloved characters.

Henry Bech, the celebrated author of Travel Light, has been scrutinized, canonized and vilified by reviewers, academics, critics and readers across the world. Suffering from temporary impotence and not-so-temporary writer's block, Bech finds renewed fame when he returns to his native America and Think Big, his all-time blockbuster, hits the shops . . .

In these classic novels by John Updike, we return to a character as compelling and timeless as Rabbit Angstrom: the inimitable Henry Bech. Famous for his writer's block, Bech is a Jew adrift in a world of Gentiles. As he roams from one adventure to the next, he views life with a blend of wonder and cynicism that will make you laugh with delight and wince in recognition.

Praise for John Updike:

'Our time's greatest man of letters - as brilliant a literary critic and essayist as he was a novelist and short-story writer. His death constitutes a loss to our literature that is immeasurable' Philip Roth

'Alert, funny, sensuous. Here is a writer who can do more or less as he likes' Martin Amis

'One of the most protean of American writers . . . For a writer whose prose can be so lush and hyper-charged, he has always been in contact with the material detritus of everyday life' The Times

'He was the ideal son of a platonic union between John Cheever and J.D. Salinger, with Nabokov attending the christening as fairy godfather' James Wood

John Updike was born in 1932 in Shillington, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Harvard College in 1954, and spent a year in Oxford, at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. His novels, stories, and nonfiction collections have won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He died in January 2009.

Reviews

Moving, thought-provoking and utterly compelling, this novel is Margaret Forster at her very best

—— Daily Mail

Like memory itself, it is subtle, full of secrets, and it lingers

—— Independent

A compulsive read, beautifully written... with the same talent she displayed so brilliantly in Hidden Lives

—— Sunday Express

Deft, unusual and very readable... Margaret Forster has again written a vivid and compulsive novel

—— Financial Times

Compulsive reading... Rooney's approach it to make this a very personal story for Joan. There's love, loss, betrayal, friendship and secrets galore and it gives a believable insight on how one, normal person might be let to betray her country. The true mark of the story is that you find yourself thinking that you might have done exactly what Joan did in those circumstances

—— The Bookbag

A gripping, emotional and expertly plotted spy novel of the Cold War, inspired by a real story. Beautifully written and clever

—— Kate Mosse

One of Britain's brightest young writing talents

—— Nic Bottomley , Bath Life

Gripping

—— Glamour

A great thriller and a stirring love story

—— Grazia

A gripping narrative and a compelling lead character... This is an absorbing and accomplished novel

—— LittleReaderLibrary

A very human Cold War thriller

—— Good Housekeeping

Rooney is a novelist at home with life’s ambiguities, her plotting pleasingly intricate, her narrative richly textured

—— Lucy Beresford , Sunday Telegraph (Seven)

A captivating read

—— Choice

An exciting and intelligent novel... Rooney's re-creation of the politics of the day is brilliant

—— Kate Saunders , The Times

Particulary acute on the muddle of emotion, reason and morality that festers around betrayal...compelling, impressively detailed story, with thrillerish overtones...

—— Elizabeth Buchan , The Sunday Times

A wonderfully plotted spy drama full of intrigue and suspense… A fantastic read

—— UK Regional Press Syndication

Extremely readable

—— Mark Perryman , Hufffington Post

A brilliant spy novel, with an unlikely culprit and a deft, involving plot... Tense, beautifully pitched and very moving

—— Marie Claire

[A] polished, intricate novel… rich in moral ambiguity

—— Sunday Telegraph

This powerfully-written spy thriller is compulsive reading

—— Falkirk Herald

A gripping spy novel with an unlikely culprit and a thoroughly researched basis in fact... Perfect for fans of William Boyd's Restless

—— Absolutely Chelsea

Sadie Jones…enters new literary territory with a whimsical Edwardian farce that takes its lead from the darker offerings of Saki and JB Priestley...The novel's denouement is satisfyingly outlandish

—— Emma Hagestadt , Independent

With elegant ease, Jones spins a good old-fashioned comedy of manners

—— Katie Owen , Sunday Telegraph

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