About halfway through Somewhere a Band is Playing.

Finished January 14. Now about halfway through Leviathan '99.

Finished January 17. These would both make awesome movies if done properly!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: dandelion,

quote:

Originally posted by dandelion:
These would both make awesome movies if done properly!

Agreed! Dearly love both novellas! I have yet to see the Katherine Hepburn movie Summertime ,or read the Stephen Leacock novel Bradbury references in the intro to SOMEWHERE...But I remember The Wind and the Lion and its great music.

If you can, dandelion, find a copy of Paul Hecht's performance/narration of Now and Forever .***** His Leviathan '99 reading--totally engaging.

If there is a work that can be said to sum up Bradbury's life statement it may just be Somewhere a Band is Playing. Willing to be wrong, cause there is so much of it to love.

Back to Green Shadows, White Whale for me:

I've just made a proper list of all my Bradbury books, and scanned all the covers. There are 64 altogether, but these include quite a few duplicates. No two are identical, though.

Despite our sad loss last year, I'm happy that Ray Bradbury will be there to keep me company for the rest of my life. Even when I've read all his books, I'll happily read them all again. I'm already considering re-reading my favorites - a shortlist of about a dozen titles - even before I've read the last few stragglers.

Yes, incredibly, there are still entire Bradbury books I haven't read, even though I own them!

Here's a list:

Dark Carnival - There are a few of the stories I don't think I've read in their DC versions, only in the October Country versions.

The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and Other Plays.

Pillar of Fire and Other Plays.

Ahmed and the Oblivion Machines (started but never finished).

Summer Morning, Summer Night (Far Territories edition).

A Pleasure to Burn.

I think the single most essential item that's still unread is "The Fireman" from a Pleasure to Burn.

A Bradbury fan's work is never done!

quote:

Originally posted by douglasSP:
...I think the single most essential item that's still unread is "The Fireman" from a Pleasure to Burn...

Yes, it is essential. But I was surprised at how similar it is to F451. I was expecting it to feel very different, but it wasn't. Shorter, and familiar scenes not there, but still essentially the same story.

quote:

Originally posted by douglasSP:
I've just made a proper list of all my Bradbury books, and scanned all the covers...

And here is douglasSP's collage of covers (he asked me to upload it on his behalf):

Wow, thanks, Phil! I made that quite a few months ago, so I've already added a few more books.

My sentimental favorite remains the Pan edition of R Is for Rocket (the one with the predominantly orange cover, near the middle). That was the first Bradbury book I bought, just about exactly 40 years ago.

You're welcome, douglasSP.

By the same criterion, my sentimental favourite (note British spelling!) would have to be the New English Library edition of THE OCTOBER COUNTRY (top row centre, featuring the man with the scythe). That's the exact same edition as the first Bradbury book I bought, albeit the second Bradbury book I read. I bought it at a "bring & buy" sale at a local church. I still have it, but the cover is now hanging by a thread.

British spelling is native to me, too, Phil, because we shooed the British away much more recently than our North American friends! But on this board, I like to affect US spelling, partly to see if I can do it, and partly so as not to startle the neighbo(u)rs.

That edition of The October Country is an interesting book, because it has a completely different TOC to the original (or maybe I should've said "than" ). It took me years to notice this!

Its stablemate, The Small Assassin, was for many years the easiest way to access some of the Dark Carnival stories.

Yes, the UK split of OCTOBER COUNTRY and THE SMALL ASSASSIN has brought some small confusion to Bradbury's publishing history. Similarly confusing was/is THE SILVER LOCUSTS, which was THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES but with different contents.

And finally, THE DAY IT RAINED FOREVER... which is almost (but not quite) A MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY.

The price we pay for Ray being mainly a short story writer is that his works got split and re-distributed in different markets. An indignity that a novelist seldom suffers.

(Although, I must add, some of the re-distribution of stories was Ray's own doing.)

It would have been less confusing if they'd retitled the British paperback called The October Country.

It isn't just abridged from the original - it also has a Dark Carnival story, "The Traveller", which was never in The October Country. But oddly enough, the Hart-Davis hardcover seems to have the "correct" first edition TOC.

I think this means that there is no UK paperback of the full, original October Country edition. I'll check that on ISFDB.

No, I was wrong. The Four Square, NEL and Panther editions are all the abbreviated book, but the Earthlight one is indeed the full version.

I haven't really paid much attention to the variations of the different volumes over the years (with the exception of MARTIAN CHRONICLES/SILVER LOCUSTS, which I have studied closely), but I have assumed that by now the globalisation of the publishing industry has pretty much smoothed out the differences between the UK and US editions.

quote:

Originally posted by philnic:
And here is douglasSP's collage of covers (he asked me to upload it on his behalf):

Lovely! I shall lift it.