Write three pages a day for more than 50 years and you end up with about 25m words - give or take a few million. John Updike once told the Paris Review “I would write ads for deodorants or labels for catsup bottles if I had to” and he meant it. From the time his first short story, Friends From Philadelphia, was bought by the New Yorker in 1954, until his death on Tuesday, Updike wrote nearly 30 novels, 14 volumes of short stories, nine of poetry and 10 collections of essays and criticism. Not to mention a play. And, yes, if you happened to have rooted through his garbage at some point, I dare say you would have found the odd advert sketched out.

Writing is what Updike did. It`s what defined him and how he defined himself. But what is the average reader, who hasn`t spent the last half-century closely following Updike`s output, expected to make of his work? He was, unquestionably, a great stylist and a brilliant observer of the American middle-classes, in particular their sex lives, but like all writers - and whisper this softly because writers and publishers never like to be reminded of this - he was prone to the odd off day. Or even year. Here`s a brief guide of what to read - and to avoid.

Couples (1968)

The book that made Updike`s repuJohn Updike.—Reuters

tation and got his face on the front cover of Time magazine when it was published. Set in the fictional Boston suburb of Tarbox in the early 1960s, Couples is about the collision of traditional Wasp sexual mores and the new liberal “post-pill paradise” as 10 married couples hop in and out of bed with each other. Couples is often credited with bringing middle-class sex in all its graphic sliminess into mainstream literature. Where previously sex had been something seedy done by only the lower orders or the avant-garde, Updike opened the bedroom doors in an often curious blend of poetic and forensic detail and was both the architect for a new explicitness and the inspiration for the Bad Sex in Fiction prize, for which he was last year given a lifetime achievement award.

Rabbit, Run (1960), Rabbit Redux (1971), Rabbit is Rich (1981), Rabbit at Rest (1990)

The Rabbit series, along with Couples, is widely held to be Updike`s best work and chronicles the life of Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom from a directionless 26-year-old former basketball star to directionless car dealer to a grossly overweight blob, played out against a background of contemporary America and - naturally - a great deal of sex and disappointment. At times the books can feel as if they are trying too hard to be the Great American novel - there`s only so much name-checking of “important” events, such as Vietnam, the oil crisis, Aids, etc most readers can take - and the writing is uneven (skip Rabbit Redux if you`re pushed), but Angstrom is one of the great characters in late-20th-century fiction and Updike fully deserved the Pulitzer prizes he won for Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest. In 2001, he also wrote Rabbit Remembered, a novella about Rabbit`s daughter, but that really is only one for the truly dedicated.

Bech, a Book (1970), Bech is Back (1982), Bech at Bay (1998)

Henry Bech, the eponymous anti-hero author of Updike`s series of short stories put together in three volumes, is everything the author was not. Bech is Jewish, unmarried, unprolific, world-weary and up for the glitzier aspects of a writer`s life. He also gets the Nobel prize for literature, an accolade that eluded Updike. Although driven by Updike`s familiar concerns, Bech is by far his most obviously comic creation and his penchant for murdering critics has made him an instant favourite for many other writers.

The Witches of Eastwick (1984), The Widows of Eastwick (2008)

Although Updike has often been held up as a literary champion by some of the more testosterone-powered writers, his reputation among women critics is more varied. His female characters often tend to be a bit bland or reactive - sexual adjuncts for the male leads - and The Witches of Eastwick, with its three strong central women who acquire magical powers after being dumped by their husbands, has been construed as Updike`s effort to redress the balance. Unfortunately, a lead male with magical powers of his own turns up to shag them all and dump them all before running off with a younger woman. The witches do find their perfect-ish husbands, but the jury is still out on Updike`s attitudes to women. The least said about last year`s The Widows of Eastwick the better.

Poetry

Only real enthusiasts do more than occasionally dip into his poetry. Although it deals with important themes of childhood, religion and death, Updike self-consciously acknowledged that much of his output could be considered light verse.

Non-fiction

As well as being prolific, Updike was formidably bright and this combination means you should approach his essays or criticism with caution. His writing is usually razor-sharp, though it can lapse into the surprisingly mawkish. Attempting to wade through a volume from beginning to end is liable to give most people a headache unless they are up to speed on subjects as diverse as Kierkegaard, American art and golf.

Drama

The one genre to defeat even Updike. His only stage outing was Buchanan Dying, a play about the former US president on his deathbed, and Updike felt uneasy about the unreality of the art form, claiming that the history of novelists as playwrights was “a sad one”. If Updike didn`t rate Buchanan Dying, then neither should you.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service