{"product_id":"the-stories-of-ray-bradbury-isbn-9780307269058","title":"The Stories of Ray Bradbury","description":"One hundred of Ray Bradbury’s remarkable stories which have, together with his classic novels\u003ci\u003e, \u003c\/i\u003eearned him an immense international audience and his place among the most imaginative and enduring writers of our time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere are the Martian stories, tales that vividly animate the red planet, with its brittle cities and double-mooned sky. Here are the stories that speak of a special nostalgia for Green Town, Illinois, the perfect setting for a seemingly cloudless childhood—except for the unknown terror lurking in the ravine. Here are the Irish stories and the Mexican stories, linked across their separate geographies by Bradbury’s astonishing inventiveness. Here, too, are thrilling, terrifying stories—including “The Veldt” and “The Fog Horn”—perfect for reading under the covers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRead for the first time, these stories become as unshakable as one’s own fantasies. Read again—and again—they reveal new, dazzling facets of the extraordinary art of Ray Bradbury.The Night\u003cbr\u003eHomecoming\u003cbr\u003eUncle Einar\u003cbr\u003eThe Traveler\u003cbr\u003eThe Lake \u003cbr\u003eThe Coffin\u003cbr\u003eThe Crowd\u003cbr\u003eThe Scythe\u003cbr\u003eThere Was an Old Woman\u003cbr\u003eThere Will Come Soft Rains\u003cbr\u003eMars Is Heaven\u003cbr\u003eThe Silent Towns\u003cbr\u003eThe Earth Men\u003cbr\u003eThe Off Season\u003cbr\u003eThe Million-Year Picnic\u003cbr\u003eThe Fox and the Forest\u003cbr\u003eKaleidoscope\u003cbr\u003eThe Rocket Man\u003cbr\u003eMarionettes, Inc.\u003cbr\u003eNo Particular Night or Morning\u003cbr\u003eThe City\u003cbr\u003eThe Fire Balloons\u003cbr\u003eThe Last Night of the World\u003cbr\u003eThe Veldt\u003cbr\u003eThe Long Rain\u003cbr\u003eThe Great Fire\u003cbr\u003eThe Wilderness\u003cbr\u003eA Sound of Thunder\u003cbr\u003eThe Murderer\u003cbr\u003eThe April Witch\u003cbr\u003eInvisible Boy\u003cbr\u003eThe Golden Kite, the Silver Wind\u003cbr\u003eThe Fog Horn\u003cbr\u003eThe Big Black and White Game\u003cbr\u003eEmbroidery\u003cbr\u003eThe Golden Apples of the Sun\u003cbr\u003ePowerhouse\u003cbr\u003eHail and Farewell\u003cbr\u003eThe Great Wide World Over There\u003cbr\u003eThe Playground\u003cbr\u003eSkeleton\u003cbr\u003eThe Man Upstairs\u003cbr\u003eTouched with Fire\u003cbr\u003eThe Emissary\u003cbr\u003eThe Jar\u003cbr\u003eThe Small Assassin\u003cbr\u003eThe Next in Line\u003cbr\u003eJack-in-the-Box\u003cbr\u003eThe Leave-Taking\u003cbr\u003eExorcism\u003cbr\u003eThe Happiness Machine\u003cbr\u003eCalling Mexico\u003cbr\u003eThe Wonderful Ice Cream Suit\u003cbr\u003eDark They Were, and Golden-Eyed\u003cbr\u003eThe Strawberry Window\u003cbr\u003eA Scent of Sarsaparilla\u003cbr\u003eThe Picasso Summer\u003cbr\u003eThe Day It Rained Forever\u003cbr\u003eA Medicine for Melancholy\u003cbr\u003eThe Shore at Sunset\u003cbr\u003eFever Dream\u003cbr\u003eThe Town Where No One Got Off\u003cbr\u003eAll Summer in a Day\u003cbr\u003eFrost and Fire\u003cbr\u003eThe Anthem Sprinters\u003cbr\u003eAnd So Died Riabouchinska\u003cbr\u003eBoys! Raise Giant Mushrooms in Your Cellar!\u003cbr\u003eThe Vacation\u003cbr\u003eThe Illustrated Woman\u003cbr\u003eSome Live Like Lazarus\u003cbr\u003eThe Best of All Possible Worlds\u003cbr\u003eThe One Who Waits\u003cbr\u003eTyrannosaurus Rex\u003cbr\u003eThe Screaming Woman\u003cbr\u003eThe Terrible Conflagration up at the Place\u003cbr\u003eNight Call, Collect\u003cbr\u003eThe Tombling Day\u003cbr\u003eThe Haunting of the New\u003cbr\u003eTomorrow’s Child\u003cbr\u003eI Sing the Body Electric!\u003cbr\u003eThe Women\u003cbr\u003eThe Inspiried Chicken Motel\u003cbr\u003eYes, We’ll Gather at the River\u003cbr\u003eHave I Got a Chocolate Bar for You!\u003cbr\u003eA Story of Love\u003cbr\u003eThe Parrot Who Met Papa\u003cbr\u003eThe October Game\u003cbr\u003ePunishment Without Crime\u003cbr\u003eA Piece of Wood\u003cbr\u003eThe Blue Bottle\u003cbr\u003eLong After Midnight\u003cbr\u003eThe Utterly Perfect Murder\u003cbr\u003eThe Better Part of Wisdom\u003cbr\u003eInterval in Sunlight\u003cbr\u003eThe Black Ferris\u003cbr\u003eFarewell Summer\u003cbr\u003eMcGillahee’s Brat\u003cbr\u003eThe Aqueduct\u003cbr\u003eGotcha!\u003cbr\u003eThe End of the Beginning“The truth is, reading the vast new Everyman’s Library edition of \u003ci\u003eThe Stories of Ray Bradbury, \u003c\/i\u003eculling through its perfectly round 100 selections (and 1,000-plus pages), stopping to wonder why it has taken 30 years for this classic collection to join the hardcover literary canon, a thought slips in repeatedly: Stephen King was thinking way too small. [“Without Ray Bradbury, there would be no Stephen King.” —Stephen King]. Without Ray Bradbury, there wouldn’t be American pop culture.\u003cbr\u003e            He is the Shakespeare of American geek culture, which, in effect, is \u003cb\u003eAmerican pop culture. \u003c\/b\u003eThe Waukegan-born writer is a popularizer of ideas so frequently plundered, subjects so unusual yet routinely picked at, reading \u003ci\u003eThe Stories of Ray Bradbury \u003c\/i\u003ebecomes a crash course in not just genre but what its modern voice sounds like.”\u003cbr\u003e            —Christopher Borrelli, \u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eRay Bradbury \u003c\/b\u003ehas published more than five hundred works, including \u003ci\u003eThe Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eSomething Wicked This Way Comes. \u003c\/i\u003eHe was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2004, and the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2000. He lives in Los Angeles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eChristopher Buckley \u003c\/b\u003eis the author of fourteen books, including \u003ci\u003eLosing Mum and Pup: A Memoir. \u003c\/i\u003eHe is editor-at-large of \u003ci\u003eForbesLife \u003c\/i\u003eMagazine.FROM THE INTRODUCTION \u003cbr\u003eBy Christopher Buckley\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e—— \u003cbr\u003eIn an episode of the hi t TV show \u003ci\u003eMad Men\u003c\/i\u003e, set in 1962, one of the characters is skeptical about a planned business trip to the West Coast. He asks his boss in a smug, New York City way, ‘‘What’s in L.A., anyway?’’ \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe boss, Don Draper, played by Jon Hamm, smiles coolly. ‘‘The Jet Propulsion Lab? Ray Bradbury?’’ \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s a throwaway l ine, a fleeting tip of the hat by \u003ci\u003eMad Men\u003c\/i\u003e’s creator, Mat thew Weiner, to the ult imate Writer’s Writer: Ray Douglas Bradbury, who, as I type these words, is one day away from his eighty-ninth birthday here on Planet Earth. (His middle name derives from Douglas Fairbanks, an idol from another era.) \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ray Bradbury published his first short story in 1938, which means that he has been a working author for seventy-one years. He is a self-professed ‘‘sprinter’’ at the short story, rather than a ‘‘marathon runner’’ novelist. It is hard to think of a writer who has done more wi th the short story form than Ray Bradbury. According to his able biographer, Sam Weller,* he has written one every week since he started. By my math, that comes to 3,640. The ‘‘Also by’’ page of a recently published book of his essays, \u003ci\u003eBradbury Speaks\u003c\/i\u003e, lists thirty-two titles. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Many writers are prolific. It is perhaps Ray’s influence on other writers – to say nothing of his readers – that sets him apart. It is profound. In the pages of Mr. Weller’s book, you’ll find the tributes and friendships of a diverse group: Bernard Berenson, Christopher Isherwood, Aldous Huxley, Stephen King, Federico Fellini, François Truffaut (who managed completely to screw up the film version of \u003ci\u003eFahrenheit 451\u003c\/i\u003e), John Huston (for whom Ray wrote the screenplay to his \u003ci\u003eMoby-Dick\u003c\/i\u003e), R.L. Stine, Buzz Aldrin (among dozens of astronauts), Walt Disney, John Steinbeck, Charles Laughton, Rod Steiger, legendary editor Bob Gottlieb (who helped to shape many of these stories), Sam Peckinpah, and Steve Martin. I’ll stop there, other than to say this is but a partial list of Ray Bradbury’s fan club. \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eGlittery names, to be sure, but Ray’s influence runs deeper. Literally, it occurs to me. Whenever I’m on a subway, I’m always curious to see what books – if any – kids are reading these days. And the two books that I routinely see the teenagers reading, intently, are \u003ci\u003eAtlas Shrugged\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eFahrenheit 451\u003c\/i\u003e. The next most-often-sighted book is \u003ci\u003eDandeli on Wine\u003c\/i\u003e (1957), which many Bradburians insist is his finest work. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ray Bradbury has covered the world – indeed, universe – with his themes: small-town America, Mars, fantasy, horror, and science fiction. You could even go so far as to say that we live today in a world that was prefigured by Ray Bradbury. \u003ci\u003eFahrenheit 451\u003c\/i\u003e, published in 1953, anticipated an age dominated by television, wall-sized plasma-screen TV, and even Sony Walkman-like devices. One of the most chilling stories in this collection, ‘‘The Veldt,’’ published at the start of the TV era, today reads like an Elijah-like warning against surrendering ourselves to the false Edens of the vast wasteland and its bastard offspring, video games. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are some ironies here in being warned against all this by one of the most famous writers of science fiction. (He prefers \u003cbr\u003eto be known as a writer of fantasy.) But few writers have a crater on the moon named for one of their books (Dandelion Crater, so named by the crew of Apollo 15 ) or have consulted on the U.S. pavilion for a World’s Fair, or on an EPCOT exhibit at Disney World. You’ll learn in Weller’s book that Ray was also the inspiration for the design of a number of leading – brace yourself – shopping malls in America. Then, of course, there is the Ray Bradbury Park in his hometown of Waukegan, Illinois. Ray is that rarity in America: the writer who has made his hometown unequivocally proud. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e✽\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAny appreciation of Ray Bradbury must begin in Waukegan, where a robotic stork or Martian obstetrician dropped him down the chimney on August 22, 1920. That was the year Prohibition began, the first commercial radio broadcast was made, Harding was elected, and F. ScottFitzgerald married (don’t do it, Scott!) Zelda. Other notable births that year: Isaac Asimov, America’s most graphomaniacal sci-fi writer; and Alex Comfort, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Joy of Sex\u003c\/i\u003e, a book that, like so many of Ray’s, brought great pleasure to a whole lot of people. In 2001, Ray told \u003ci\u003eSalon\u003c\/i\u003e: ‘‘Why would you clone people when you can go to bed with them and make a baby?’’ \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The town Ray Bradbury grew up in is very much the Green Town of the Dandelion stories, a number of which are included here. The very first story, ‘‘The Night,’’ begins with, ‘‘You are a child in a small town.’’ And there you are, in a magical and often mystical world of grandparents and pie smells and fireflies and the bang of the screen door. \u003ci\u003eAnd there are things in the woods beyond\u003c\/i\u003e. One of the final stories in this collection, ‘‘Farewell Summer,’’ was originally included in \u003ci\u003eDandelion Wine\u003c\/i\u003e but was cut. Here it is, and it’s haunting. It will, perhaps, take you back to that summer in your own youth when you realized that it wasn’t going to last, and that there were some \u003ci\u003eseriously\u003c\/i\u003e scary things out there beyond the woods. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘‘Grow up?’’ Ray commented once, after sadly watching a boy balk at entering a toy store in Sausalito. ‘‘What does that mean? I’ll tell you: It doesn’t mean anything.’’ \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere’s a rare note of contempt in that statement, and it’s telling. Ray Bradbury is a sunny, decent, loving, gregarious, generous man, both on the page (at least when he’s not scaring the bejeezus out of you) and in person. The joyousness and zest that he brings to his work – even to the darker works – seem (to me, at least) to arise out of his eternal boyishness. Ray Bradbury has \u003cbr\u003eno Inner Child. He has an Outer Child. On the page, he’s Douglas (note the name) Spaulding of the \u003ci\u003eDandelion\u003c\/i\u003e stories. Douglas is a Huck Finn: prototypically Midwestern, a rulebreaker, adventurer, and dreamer. (Odd, come to think of it, that nowhere in the literature about Bradbury have I found a single reference to Twain. Perhaps it’s not true, as Ray’s fellow Illinosian Ernest Hemingway said, that ‘‘All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called \u003ci\u003eHuckleberry Finn\u003c\/i\u003e.’’) But to paraphrase Hemingway, all literature by Bradbury certainly comes from Buck Rogers, L. Frank Baum, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, Edgar Allan Poe, Sherwood Anderson, Herman Melville, John Steinbeck, William Butler Yeats, and of course Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWho?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eWell, okay, I hadn’t heard of him either: the nineteenth-century Italian astronomer who discovered the allegedly manmade channels on Mars (mistranslated into English as ‘‘canals,’’), providing Ray Bradbury with the inspiration for \u003ci\u003eThe Martian Chronicles\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*The Bradbury Chronicles, 2005\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"Everyman's Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303107383525,"sku":"NP9780307269058","price":42.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307269058.jpg?v=1767741667","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-stories-of-ray-bradbury-isbn-9780307269058","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}