Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales

For the dedicated Ray Bradbury fan, this is a masterful compilation of 100 of his short stories. Experienced readers will have their personal favorites (just like fans of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits will have their favorite episodes), and it's impossible not to because Bradbury used his stories to explore so many different aspects of the human condition. Some of these aspects will have a deeper personal impact than others - just depends on the individual and his or her life.

This is a great big tome to put on your bedside table, or your coffee table on your screen porch, anywhere you can pick up the book, savor a couple of stories, and then take the quiet time to reflect on the stories and little subtle lessons about humanity. And these are worth coming back to every so often. I first read them in elementary school, and every decade you get a little more insight into their messages.

For the reader new to Bradbury, this is a wonderful place to start, as he is one of the most approachable science fiction writers in this particular format. Best advice would be to go online, find a list or two of his more classic stories, and start there so you get an overall sense of his writing style. Then you can use this compilation to continue to explore some of his lesser known stories and maybe discover a favorite of your own.

Can't recommend this volume enough to fiction lovers!

It's taken me a few days to get around to writing this review. As soon as I completed the book, we went on a short vacation.

I don't think I'm old, but some of you may disagree. The last time I read a book by Bradbury was in High School back in roughly 19xx. So, it's been a while and I had forgotten when a great writer he was.

Bradbury stories is very long, almost 1,000 pages, including 100 of his best short stories. The reading is easy, quick and enjoyable. In fact, I have on only a few occasions in my life read a story where I can imagine the voice of the characters. There were several of his stories where I experienced that. If you have never "heard" a character in a story, you have not experienced a feeling that I cannot entirely describe. Suffice it to say that it was beautiful and all consuming.

A listing of all of the stories in the book can be found here: [...]

With 100 stories, I cannot go into specifics. But, the genres of the stories run the gambit from suspense to horror to science fiction to drama, and just about everything in between.

This was a great book. Can't say anything more.

"Martin Prince: As your president, I would demand a science-fiction library, featuring an ABC of the genre. Asimov, Bester, Clarke. Student: What about Ray Bradbury? Martin Prince: I'm aware of his work..."

A fun little scene from "The Simpsons" but it highlights that Bradbury is celebrated, yet gets shunted aside by some people who think Bradbury's literary style and content is more social commentary rather than science fiction. But what science fiction ISN'T social commentary? We love dystopian novels these days more than ever, and what are they if not projections of "what if this trend continues?

Bradbury wrote in a more literary style: the first story in the collection, "The Whole Town's Sleeping" is a Stephen King horror story with the overlay of poetic language; the rhythm of the sentences and the motif of cold winter overlaid on a hot summer's night is stunning. This could have been a "Twilight Zone" episode but its merit is in the beauty of the language and the inexorable pace of the horror that happened, is happening, and will happen.

"The Pedestrian" was inspired by Bradbury being stopped for just walking around on a city street one evening. The idea that a man, minding his own business, was an oddity and should be investigated by the cop on the beat gave him the story. But it eventually led to his masterpiece "Fahrenheit 451."

Bradbury has been filmed but really, to appreciate his work, it should be read, or listened to. It's unique in the beauty of the writing for its own sake, and here are 100 stories--and that's a lot of stories. I wasn't aware that Bradbury wrote this many short works and I'm glad to have this Kindle book to savor them.

I read my first book when I was 10, that book was 'The Martian Chronicles' after that I was hooked. I have read all of Ray Bradbury's books and that put me on the way for reading all I could. I remember the librarian back then said I couldn't read so many books and understand them. I had my trusty dictionary with me and have never stopped reading. I love reading anything and still have my favorite's in hard cover book form. I am now 73 and still read although not as much as I used to. Thank you Kindle for supplying a dictionary for the words I have to look up!

I've read some Bradbury stories and novels over the years, but the chance to read 100 of Bradbury's stories in a single collection - to say nothing of the fact that they were chosen by Bradbury himself - seemed too good to pass up. And as you might expect, the resulting collection is a wonderful read, giving you both a sense of Bradbury's wide range - with stories both optimistic and chilling, both realistic and futuristic, both whimsical and horrifying - and his fixations and tropes, whether that be stories about a small pub in Ireland, men named Douglas, great authors of the fantastic, or his stand-in for a prototypical American town, here named Green Town. More than that, reading this anthology of stories, which doesn't hew to a time period like one of his published collections normally would, allows you to see Bradbury's prose as it developed and changed over time. I've made the comment in the past that Bradbury was a fairly simple writer, and while that's true in some ways, there's little denying that he's capable of much more, something that especially shines in his tales of Dublin life and the playful prose that he brings to bear on these passages. Moreover, look at the impact he can bring out in a single sentence - look, for instance, at the final sentence of "The Whole Town's Sleeping", which ends the story on a perfectly chilling note without going very far at all. Or look at the wonder that Bradbury subtly weaves into "And the Moon Be Still as Bright", the tale of a man horrified by the boorish behavior of the men with whom he finds himself exploring the utterly alien world of Mars. Sometimes, he can be hilarious, like his satirical look at trendsetters, "The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse"; other times, as with "Zero Hour", he slowly undermines his usual small-town optimism to unnerving effect. But most often, as with the surprisingly moving "Toynbee Convector", Bradbury inspires, battling against his own grim worries for humanity and the present to try to find hope - a quality that infuses so many of his stories, and one that sets him apart from many science-fiction authors. Bradbury may be capable of chilling darkness, but you'd never consider him a purveyor of darkness or horrific tales. He's a man who loves humanity, even as he worries for it, and finds the humor and warmth in more situations than most authors ever would. And his stories are always, forever, and inescapably human to their core, leaving me as a reader moved by his deeply thoughtful spirit and keen observation, and in awe of his immense talent, range, ability, and gift for spinning tales.

Great Author. I like this book's size, but the print font is small, light, and its paper density is average, the latter elements only slightly reducing my eagerness to read it. The 2 pics display how it arrived with a fold in the front cover, slight crimp damage to the bottom right corner, and red paint rubbed off one of the spine edges. The price was less than our local bookseller so I'm going to learn to live with this "New" damaged item, instead of dealing with the return hassle and chancing the sending of another possibly worse copy. I'm just glad it wasn't purchased as a gift for someone else.