This week the world has been remembering Pulitzer Prize winning author Ray Bradbury, who inspired generations of readers with works such as FARENHEIT 451 and SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. Which Bradbury story is your favorite? And please enjoy a conversation with Ray Bradbury.
Killzoneblog.com
THE ILLUSTRATED MAN is my #1 favorite Bradbury tale.
Reading The Illustrated Man in junior high (the 60s paperback with that great red cover with the illustrated man sitting with his back to us) fired my imagination like nothing before and rarely since.
I was struck by that story as well, Jim. Whenever I see someone covered with tattoos, I idly speculate whether they have read the book.
My favorite is Dandelion Wine. The whole book is amazing.
I think this is my favorite as well.
Haven’t read that one, feeling deprived, adding it to my TBR ASAP pile!
I remember devouring his books when I was in high school/college, and couldn’t pick a favorite, although when I hear his name, it’s Fahrenheit 451 that comes to mind.
It’s usually assigned in high school, although many young people I’ve known struggled to finish it, and regarded it’s reading as something of a chore. I wonder if its true target audience is more adult?
Fahrenheit 451 comes to mind frequently when I see the size of people’s television sets and they way we interact with each other through computers – using software run by giant corporations.
That, and a Star Trek episode when everyone got addicted to a 3D hologram game on Picard’s ship. They got so obsessed with the palm-sized game that they stopped functioning as a crew, and the game had to be banned. At least it wasn’t books! Thanks for stopping in today, Earnie!
All Summer in a Day and I Sing the Body Electric are two of my favorites. He also published an inspirational book on writing that I have in my personal library.
This is not about my favorite Bradburys (The Sound of Summer Running and A Sound of Thunder) but the great honor I had early on in my career to sit on a writer’s seminar panel with the man himself. (It was a total surprise to me, or I would likely have frozen in awe and fear and never gone in. He was there to give a workshop, someone else scheduled for the panel canceled, and he stepped in) He was utterly unassuming and gracious, and generous and encouraging to all the “wanna-be’s” in the audience. I remember thinking “Wow, now that’s the way to be if you’re famous.” One of my fondest memories!
What an experience, Justine! I’m jealous. ??
“There Will Come Soft Rains,” Bradbury’s version of SILENT SPRING. The world doesn’t need us to master it. After we destroy ourselves, the world will go on.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this.
Ray Bradbury ignited my passion for books and I spent years trying to emulate him. I’m now in my fifties and writing my first novel in my own voice. I finally realized that this is what he would have wanted for me, had our paths ever crossed.
My favorite Ray Bradbury book is ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’
I agree with Nancy about “There will come soft rains.” Amazing. Also I like “The Veldt”:
“George, I wish you’d look at the nursery.”
And “All Summer in a Day”:
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
“Now?”
“Soon.”
That man knew how to write! And he did a fantastic job creating memorable characters.
Dandelion Wine… definitely. I think it’s beautiful.
The Illustrated Man
Fahrenheit 451
… almost everything he’s written goes into my list of favorites.
I can’t pick a favorite. Between the ages of about 10 and my mid-teens I read every RB book there was, some of them multiple times. Even now I can recall the mental imagery they provoked. Asked at that time I would have told you he was one of my favorite writers. I’m sure he has been a major influence on my thinking, but not in a way I’m conscious of. I was at USC when the film of Something Wicked This Way Comes was screened for a class at Norris Cinema Theatre. He came, watched, and did a Q & A afterwards. That was a Big Deal for me, and many others who were there. Yes, he was wearing an ice cream white suit.
The one Bradbury piece that sticks in my mind and my heart to this day is All Summer in a Day. The emotions really hit home, because I was always the smallest, always the meekest in school, and that could have been me missing out on the one day of sunshine in my childhood, stuck in the closet.
Funnily enough I’m just reading Something Wicked This Way Comes and am blown away by it!