One More for the Road: A New Story Collection (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"You do not build a Time Machine unless you know where you are going.... But I built my Time Machine, all unknowingly, with no destination in mind," explains a bemused time traveler in Bradbury's latest collection. Bradbury, who has taken readers on so many marvelous trips, has a similar approach to navigation. In this new volume of stories (17 of the 24 have never been published before), he maintains his unflinching dedication to the magic of everyday life. Relaxing into his favorite themes memory, loneliness, childhood, love and time he is not afraid to wax sentimental, but the sharp edge of his prose keeps the tales from cloying. Haunted settings are common: the ghost town in "Where All Is Emptiness There Is Room to Move"; the Parisian cemetery PŠre Lachaise in "Diane de Forˆt"; and the L.A. streets of 1939 in "Tangerine," in which Bradbury tells the story of a tragically cool man who'd rather be dead than 30. The writer is at his best when he chronicles the child self he has never lost touch with. In "Autumn Afternoon," Miss Elizabeth Simmons cleans out her attic and discovers calendars she kept as a girl, checking off dates that were once important but are now mysterious. Bradbury, on the other hand, seems to remember everything because at 81, he is still 18 at heart. In "With Smiles as Wide as Summer," a virtual prose poem about being a boy on perpetual vacation, he notes, "Circling, they knocked the echoes with their voices, plunged, rolled over, spun, jigged, shook themselves, raced off, hurtled back, leapt high, mad with summerlight and heat, unable to stop just being alive." The pure joy of earthly existence is something Bradbury has never forgotten. Southern California regional author tour; Harper Audio.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

A collection of 25 new stories and catch the afterword by the author.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (March 26, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0066211069
• ISBN-13: 978-0066211060
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,490,535 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bradbury-lovers rejoice, August 31, 2002

By	C. Fletcher (California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazingly, at the age of eighty-two, Ray Bradbury still writes with the passion and gusto of a young boy dreaming awake. He's somehow managed to weather a lifetime's worth of storms while keeping the flame of wonder glowing brightly in his chest. For years, I've been an admirer of Bradbury's lucid, image-pregnant prose, and this new collection--hopefully, in spite of its title, not his last--is the latest reason why.

Those who are returning to Bradbury Country will likely recognize some familiar concerns in this latest batch of stories. Magic and illusion abound, of course, and there are plenty of characters grown wistful for the past. Laurel and Hardy show up for the party, as do Hemingway, Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. There's plenty of time travel, a few dark rooms filled with flickering images, a handful of wild robotic inventions, pairs of heart-sick lovers, and another trip down to Mexico.

But there are some new twists here as well. Bradbury, with his inimitable style and sensibility, takes on some of the gray areas that inhabit our present imperfect. The guilty male moral quagmires of phone sex and Internet porn provide fuel for one of the stories. There is also a pervading sadness and loneliness to these tales that feels uniquely modern. There are plenty of unhappy couples, unfulfilled dreams, and broken connections. This often-gray environment makes all the more poignant the bursts of golden joy and wonder.

Bradbury has always held in one hand the ghostly and in the other the exuberant and when he rubs his hands together and gets down to business, the resultant explosion is felt to the metaphoric corners of Far Rockaway.

Bradbury-lovers rejoice: this is fine vintage. So drink up, and drink deep.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent anthology, March 30, 2002

By	Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Ray Bradbury is one of the great writers of the last century and apparently based on this work this century too. ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD consists of twenty-five short stories and an afterward from Mr. Bradbury. The tales run the gamut of human emotion but metaphorically from an eerie looking glass. Most of Mr. Bradbury's contributions are brand new with only seven having seen previous light (or is that dark?). As expected from this grandmaster, each tale is taut, intelligent, and insightful as Mr. Bradbury still surgically renders opens the human condition for readers to explore.

Harriet Klausner

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All of the other reviewers have missed the message, March 7, 2007

By	Elaine B. Douts "E. B. Davis" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: One More for the Road (Mass Market Paperback)

The fact is that unless you are under 50 years old, you may not be able to appreciate this collection. It was his first work in a decade and probably will be his last. Reader, beware-Bradbury will rip your heart out.

Bradbury wrote this volume while in his eighties. In this collection, which is realism-not science fiction, he told the truth ruthlessly, not how it is supposed to be, or how we tell ourselves it is. He's facing death and has no time for fairy tales. He's sifting through his life's lessons and presenting us with the outcome. Appreciate it for what it is and try to learn from it.

"Heart Transplant" portrays a man and a woman who are having an affair. While they are lying in bed, the woman decides that it's all wrong and that she'd like to fall back in love with her husband. She tells the man how she feels and asks wouldn't it be wonderful to fall back in love with their spouses. She asks him, as a favor to her, to try and fall in love with his wife again. He says-sure, knowing that he never will. Determined to do the right thing, which he knows is better for her, she gets out of bed and gives him a kiss goodbye. As the door closes, he cries knowing the love of his life walked out the door and won't return. He lied to her so that she would be happy and in a better situation (morally).

In "In Memoriam", a husband and wife are moving from their family home since it's time for them to move to a retirement community. The wife urges her husband to take down the nasty, rusted basketball hoop attached to the garage framing. It's a task he's been putting off for thirty years, ever since their son was killed in Vietnam. He knows he has to do it, but there's something he has to do first. That night, he goes out by the light of the moon and plays a final game with his son. In playing that final game, he must finally acknowledge his son's death. Up to then, he was OK, his son was just gone, but even though thirty years passed by, having the hoop in place was a symbol of his son's life. He takes it down as his wife asked, but it nearly kills him.

Love never dies, wonderful, but also horrifying since time and circumstance change nothing. Survivors don't heal, but endure, which takes a courage only the old know.

My mother told me before she died that old age wasn't for sissies. Bradbury strikes that message home.