Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews [Paperback]

Ray Bradbury (Author), Sam Weller (Author), Black Francis (Foreword)

Book Description

Release date: June 29, 2010

A definitive collection of interviews with one of America's most famous writers, covering his life, faith, friends, politics, and visions of the future.

Ray Bradbury, the poetic and visionary author of such classics as Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man, is one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. From Mikhail Gorbachev to Alfred Hitchcock to David Bowie, Bradbury’s sway on contemporary culture is towering. Acclaimed biographer and Bradbury scholar Sam Weller has spent more than a decade interviewing the author; the fascinating conversations that emerge cast a high-definition portrait of a creative genius and a futurist who longs for yesterday. Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews is the definitive collection of interviews with an American icon.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A book that's feisty and that charges full-speed ahead, a book that practically levitates out of your hands as you turn the pages — there is that much energy in it, that much love for life and for books and for the people who make and read them."
—Julia Keller, The Chicago Tribune

"Sam Weller knows more about my life than I do."
—Ray Bradbury

“Weller…organized the interviews into sections such as ‘Childhood,’ ‘Hollywood,’ ‘Faith,’ ‘Politics,’ and ‘Sexuality.’ He offers an insightful introduction to each. (Another diehard fan, Black Francis of the Pixies, penned the forward). Overall, this is a book that brims over with inspiration and imagination found in the words of a 90-year-old man who’s never lost his passion.”
—Chicago Sun-Times

“The book is impressively packed with illuminating details about the rise of such an iconic writer’s career. Casual admirer or super-fan, in Listen to the Echoes Ray Bradbury’s remarkable spirit will break your heart at least once.”
—Nylon

“Weller is the quintessential interviewer who asks probing questions, then gets out of the way so that readers will have the feeling that Bradbury is talking to them. Bradbury comes across as honest, opinionated, passionate, and childlike. This book will please ardent Bradbury fans and those just looking into his work. Recommended.”
—Library Journal

Praise for The Bradbury Chronicles
"For Bradbury fans, The Bradbury Chronicles is essential... [A]n engaging, often fascinating tale."
—The New York Times Book Review

"If The Bradbury Chronicles is exhaustive, it is never exhausting, and each anecdote adds light and color to the portrait [Weller] has painted of a writer of real accomplishment."
—The Los Angeles Times

About the Author

Sam Weller is the author of The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury, the first ever biography of Ray Bradbury, which received the prestigious Society of Midland Authors award for best biography in 2005, and was short-listed for the Bram Stoker award in the best nonfiction category. The book was a Los Angeles Times bestseller and was named a best book of the year by the Chicago Tribune, the Denver Rocky Mountain News, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Stop Smiling Books; 1st edition (June 29, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1935554034
• ISBN-13: 978-1935554035
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #742,591 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Joyful Book, Joyful Bradbury July 1, 2010

By Mort

Format:Paperback

Listen to the Echoes is a joyful book. In Sam Weller's candid interviews, Ray Bradbury celebrates the gift that is life itself: not always easy but endlessly interesting. Unlike pop psych philosophers or preachers of bumper sticker religious platitudes, Bradbury gives us specifics about what makes waking up each morning the start of another adventure.

Sam Weller obviously admires Bradbury, artist and man, but doesn't limit himself to warm, fuzzy, and obvious queries: Ray Bradbury reveals himself as lifelong fanboy, with his movie star autograph collection, and sometimes curmudgeonly political conservative--but these insights add to the reality of the man: No clay feet, just the standard fleshly kind in Florsheims that walk the down to Earth.

Along with Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, this book is required reading for all those engaged in (the art and craft of) writing. It's also for those who believe in Life.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An American Original August 8, 2010

By Greg Murphy

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

All I knew about Ray Bradbury was that he wrote "Fahrenheit 451", "The Illustrated Man" and a lot of science fiction. What a pleasure it was then to meet an American original like Mark Twain in Sam Weller's superlative new book--"Listen To The Echoes". From sex and religion, to his life in Hollywood, to his thoughts on architecture and literature, Bradbury speaks with the wisdom of a philosopher, the wonder of a child and a hilarious, sometimes brutal honesty that for all its bite is never vicious. It's truly wonderful to listen to Bradbury's unique voice as he muses on everything from Renaissance art to Garbo, his thoughts about an afterlife and his great joy in living despite having suffered a debilitating stroke and losing his wife of fifty-six years. Bradbury seems also to have met everyone from Gorbachev and Norman Mailer to Marlene Dietrich, Sinatra, Walt Disney and Steven Spielberg, and gives his own inimitable perspective on them all. Mr. Weller knows his subject and does a beautiful job capturing this complex and fascinating writer--as he puts it "unfiltered and unplugged". I plan to reread "Listen To The Echoes" for its insights, its humor and as a superb portrait of an inspired and inspiring artist and humanist.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating, inspiring must-read for Bradbury fans August 8, 2010

By Sheila L. Beaumont VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I loved these interviews! Ray Bradbury is a fascinating person, and the book is really inspiring, since he has such great enthusiasm about people and things. He's opinionated, too, which adds to the fun. Among the topics covered are Bradbury's childhood, movies, comics, famous friends, religion, politics, and science fiction.

Here's a small sampling of Bradbury's opinions: 1) The Harry Potter books are wonderful, and he gave them to all of his grandchildren; he likens them to his own "Something Wicked This Way Comes"; 2) He loves to get toys for Christmas; 3) Reagan was one of the great presidents of the 20th century; 4) He's in favor of gay marriage ("Love is love. All I want is for people to be happy"); 5) Bush I should have extended the Gulf War to Baghdad and overthrown Saddam Hussein; then Bush II wouldn't have inherited the problem; 6) Edgar Rice Burroughs "is probably the most influential writer in the entire history of the world"; he inspired a whole generation of kids, causing them to go out into the world and become special; he inspired lots of writers, scientists and technologists.

It's a wonderful book, provocative, informative and entertaining, and a great supplement to author Sam Weller's excellent biography "The Bradbury Chronicles."

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars That's the Sound of the Man August 3, 2010

By Greg

Format:Paperback

More than just a companion volume to his book The Bradbury Chronicles, Sam Weller's collection of interviews and anecdotes is a visionary journey into the mind and times of one of America's most prolific and influential writers.

Covering everything from politics to religion to sex, Listen is a 21st century book in it's execution. Included with the author's stories about his own life as Bradbury's biographer (do YOU know what Karl Rove's favorite Bradbury book is? Sam does,) are rich photos of Bradbury's basement office- stacked to the ceiling with comic books, monster toys, movie posters, and so much more- by photographer Zen Sekizawa.

The impact of reading Listen to the Echoes is akin to having Weller and Bradbury themselves, sitting across from you, in conversation. The impact of having read Listen to the Echoes is to have become one step deeper in the ranks on the side of life, love, and laughter.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Listen to the Reviews August 3, 2010

By L

Format:Paperback

Sam Weller weaves in and out of Ray Bradbury's life, skipping along the surface before diving deep into the 90-year-old's everlasting imagination and memory. Listen to the Echoes contains wisdom for readers and writers, yes, but also for lovers of life everywhere.

Organized into topics ranging from Childhood and Faith to Sexuality and Visions of the Future, Weller's questions and Bradbury's responses work together to create a time machine. Back to Bradbury's birth (of which he claims to remember), to a 1920s theater where 3-year-old Ray discovers his love of cinema, to a time when Peanuts and Calvin & Hobbes were still in the paper, to Democrats to Republicans to creativity to the Amazon Kindle, Bradbury is transformed into something more than just a writer with every turn of the page.

Read it. Refer to it. Learn from it. You will never fully close this book as the lessons it holds will stick with you for the rest of your life.