A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories (Paperback)

~ Ray Bradbury (Author) "George and Alice Smith detrained at Biarritz one summer noon and in an hour had run through their hotel onto the beach into the ocean..." (more)
Key Phrases: marasmius oreades, great collision, screaming woman, Old Lady, William Lantry, George Smith (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Ray Bradbury is a painter who uses words rather than brushes--for he created lasting visual images that, once observed, are impossible to forget. Sinister mushrooms growing in a dank cellar. A family's first glimpse at Martians. A wonderful white vanilla ice-cream summer suit that changes everyone who wears it. A great artist drawing in the sand on the beach. A clunky contraption made out of household implements to help some kids play a game called Invasion. The most marvelous Christmas display a little boy ever saw. All those images and many more are inside this book, a new trade edition of thirty-one of Bradbury's most arresting tales--timeless short fiction that ranges from the farthest reaches of space to the innermost stirrings of the heart. Ray Bradbury is known worldwide as one of the century's great men of imagination. Here are thirty-one reasons why.Ray Bradbury is a painter who uses words rather than brushes--for he created lasting visual images that, once observed, are impossible to forget. Sinister mushrooms growing in a dank cellar. A family's first glimpse at Martians. A wonderful white vanilla ice-cream summer suit that changes everyone who wears it. A great artist drawing in the sand on the beach. A clunky contraption made out of household implements to help some kids play a game called Invasion. The most marvelous Christmas display a little boy ever saw. All those images and many more are inside this book, a new trade edition of thirty-one of Bradbury's most arresting tales--timeless short fiction that ranges from the farthest reaches of space to the innermost stirrings of the heart. Ray Bradbury is known worldwide as one of the century's great men of imagination. Here are thirty-one reasons why.

About the Author

Ray Bradbury, American novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and poet, was born August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. He graduated from a Los Angeles high school in 1938.Although his formal education ended there, he became a "student of life," selling newspapers on L.A. street corners from 1938 to 1942, spending his nights in the public library and his days at the typewriter.He became a full-time writer in 1943, and contributed numerous short stories to periodicals before publishing a collection of them, Dark Carnival, in 1947.

His reputation as a writer of courage and vision was established with the publication of The Martian Chronicles in 1950, which describes the first attempts of Earth people to conquer and colonize Mars, and the unintended consequences.Next came The Illustrated Man and then, in 1953, Fahrenheit 451, which many consider to be Bradbury’s masterpiece, a scathing indictment of censorship set in a future world where the written word is forbidden.In an attempt to salvage their history and culture, a group of rebels memorize entire works of literature and philosophy as their books are burned by the totalitarian state.Other works include The October Country, Dandelion Wine, A Medicine for Melancholy, Something Wicked This Way Comes, I Sing the Body Electric!, Quicker Than the Eye, and Driving Blind.In all, Bradbury has published more than thirty books, close to 600 short stories, and numerous poems, essays, and plays.His short stories have appeared in more than 1,000 school curriculum "recommended reading" anthologies.Mr. Bradbury’s eagerly awaited new novel, From the Dust Returned, will be published by William Morrow at Halloween 2001.Morrow will release One More For the Road, a new collection Bradbury stories, at Christmas 2001.

Ray Bradbury’s work has been included in four Best American Short Story collections. He has been awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award, the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America, the PEN Center USA West Lifetime Achievement Award, among others.In November 2000, the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters was conferred upon Mr. Bradbury at the 2000 National Book Awards Ceremony in New York City.

Ray Bradbury has never confined his vision to the purely literary. He has been nominated for an Academy Award (for his animated film Icarus Montgolfier Wright), and has won an Emmy Award (for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree).He adapted sixty-five of his stories for television’s Ray Bradbury Theater. He was the creative consultant on the United States Pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. In 1982 he created the interior metaphors for the Spaceship Earth display at Epcot Center, Disney World, and later contributed to the conception of the Orbitron space ride at Euro-Disney, France.

Married since 1947, Mr. Bradbury and his wife Maggie live in Los Angeles with their four beloved cats.They have four daughters and eight grandchildren.

On the occasion of his 80th birthday in August 2000, Bradbury said, "The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me.The feeling I have every day is very much the same as it was when I was twelve.In any event, here I am, eighty years old, feeling no different, full of a great sense of joy, and glad for the long life that has been allowed me.I have good plans for the next ten or twenty years, and I hope you’ll come along."

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (February 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380730863
• ISBN-13: 978-0380730865
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #325,517 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing, April 14, 2001

By	Lauren (PA) - See all my reviews

Wow- this book is a creative, intelligent, easy-to-understand treasure! Each story is about 5-25 pages, some are shorter than others. They are not all alike, so you are guaranteed to like at least a few, but it is hard to believe that someone might not like most of them. ray bradbury writes very well and i am sure you will enjoy this book. try it!!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Collection by a Master Short-Story Writer, May 17, 2002

By	Brian C. Taylor "smug feldspar magnate" (Tallahassee, FL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Ray Bradbury is one of the most distinctive and talented writers that the sci-fi pulps of the 40's and 50's spawned. He's got a really unique voice, and his stories, usually very short and very readable, are certainly a example of sci-fi at its finest. Some really great stories in this collection. However, I guess it's kind of silly to call this a sci-fi collection. There's horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and a lot of plain old good short story in this collection. If you like to read short stories, I highly recommend any of his collections, because they seem consistently good to me.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A must for Bradbury fans, September 27, 2008

By	Emily Taylor "1st Grade Teacher/Scouter Gal" (Northern Utah) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I always tend to think of Ray Bradbury as one of the science fiction masters. And that is not to say that this collection has zero science fiction, for it does. But there are several stories where Bradbury takes his skill past the sci-fi and fully into the heartfelt world he so often covers in his other books. The stories range from romance to the rainy worlds of Venus and every place inbetween as Bradbury demonstrates some stunning and always powerful imagination.