With little fanfare, Updike bids books adieu

MANCHESTER-BY-THE-SEA -- Makeshift shelves in John Updike's barn and the cellar of his house overflowed with books, but the effect was somewhat less than literary.

''They were just collecting dust and mouse droppings," he said.

So Updike and his wife turned to an independent book shop for help. He said Manchester by the Book owner Mark Stolle was the only one they called who would pay for the used books -- and haul them away.

''I'm at an age when you think about lightening your load, rather than dumping it on your heirs," said the author, who is 72.

But not all the books are fated to spend years being bought and sold for a quarter or a dollar by lovers of used books.

Buried among the dozens that sat in piles on the floor along a wall of Stolle's cramped shop this week were several whose margins were filled with handwritten questions and analogies from the novelist and essayist, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner.

The penciled notations -- Updike calls them his ''scribblings" -- offer vivid insight of the author's thinking process.

Those editions are going for between $200 and $1,000.

Updike, who counts himself a supporter of independent bookstores, doesn't mind that Stolle is making a profit.

''If he's able to make a few dollars on a few of the review copies scattered in there, all the better," Updike said. ''He paid a fair price."

KAY LAZAR