Still Looking: Essays on American Art by novelist John Updike is a wordsmith's look at artists. Art appreciation has always been a passion of Updike's, and indeed the writer is no stranger to fine art, having once spent a year at art school. Still Looking is a novel approach to art history and Updike is adept at drawing the reader into his subject. Among artists covered by Updike's observations are Albert Pinkham Ryder, Jackson Pollock, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Edward Hopper, Whistler, Georgia OKeefe and Andy Warhol.

Hardcover, 240 pages, Knopf 2005, $25.20 at Amazon.

Still Looking: Essays on American Art