Though it probably isn't my favorite story of his, I've been racking my brain trying to recall the title of Ray's story about a 12 year old boy who wanders from family to family, but he's really 40 years old, and never ages. Does anyone know which story this is? Thanks!

The story is "Hail and Farewell", which you can find in:

The Golden Apples of the Sun;
The Vintage Bradbury;
S Is for Space;
The Stories of Ray Bradbury;
Classic Stories 1, and
A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories.

Thanks! That's the title. I ~thought it was in Golden Apples of The Sun, but what I had downloaded is actually a semi-omnibus edition called Classic Stories 1, which had dropped that story along with two others. So I listened to an audio rendition dramatized by Lawrence Gilbert. I miss being near a real library.

Ah, yes—you're right.

I had forgotten that they swapped out a few stories between Classic Stories 1 and 2, and that just happens to be one of them.

Without even looking it up, that probably means it isn't in THE GOLDEN APPLES OF THE SUN AND OTHER STORIES, either, since that's just another edition of CLASSIC STORIES 1. That also applies to A SOUND OF THUNDER AND OTHER STORIES, which is yet another reprint of CLASSIC STORIES 1!

So the book you're looking for is the original edition of THE GOLDEN APPLES OF THE SUN, or CLASSIC STORIES 2. Or even A MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY AND OTHER STORIES, which is a reprint of CLASSIC STORIES 2.

Confused? I sure am!

This brings to mind a complicated technical question which I am probably the only one in the world who cares about but here goes. For 41 years now I have kept a list of every book I ever read going back as far as I remember. Each book is assigned a number in the order in which I read it. Naturally books read before I started the list are in approximate order.

Incidentally I've never known how to count Classic Stories 1 and Classic Stories 2 on my list!

--When, for instance, several books I have read are published together in one collected work, if there is new material such as an introduction, I simply read the introduction and list the title of the collected work with a new number for the day on which I read the introduction. But the compilers of these books decided to make life harder by not including introductions.

--OR, I could, of course, list the date on which I finished reading the last story in each new collection, but that would be wrong because 1) I don't always know which story I read last and when, and 2) Even when I do, I read that story decades before that collection ever came out! And yet do the editors of these collections ever consider the hardship they inflict upon me? No, they do not!

--If a book is an exact reissue under another title, I have an "Alternate Title" box with the main title being the one under which I read it. But the compilers of these books decided to make life harder by switching stories around instead of reissuing the exact same collections under other titles. (And as for alternate contents of The Martian Chronicles let's just not go there right now...if ever, and that's not even to mention variant versions of stories.)

--If it's a collected works of an author whose books have been issued both separately and in many other collections--Beatrix Potter being the worst offender, and there are H. H. Munro (Saki) and others--it makes no sense separately numbering 99 zillion variant collections. In the case of Beatrix Potter, each book I have read which was published by itself has its own number, then there is her Collected Works with the notation "Contains," followed by a list of the 99 zillion variant collections.

--Is EVERYTHING collected in Bradbury Classic Stories 1, Classic Stories 2, and A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories ALSO collected in Twice 22, with NO funny business of throwing in other stories from other books? If so, I can in good conscience make a notation under the entry for Twice 22 listing these books, including them in the total list without the ordeal of additional entries.

Of course, to do all this I have to totally rebuild my database as the last computer capable of reading the floppy disk containing the original list died five years ago and a computer expert barely rescued the material by creating an Excel spreadsheet which is approximately ten miles long so by the time I scroll to author, date, rating, etc., I have NO IDEA what title they belong with! I need a NICE, EASY entry form like I USED TO HAVE, that stays TOGETHER on the screen, but so far modern-day office programs have knocked me for a loop! I have been unable to even create an entry form let alone enter data. But if I can even answer this tricky collection counting question there will be one obstacle hurdled!

Thank you all so much!

Thanks again, Douglas. I hope it was clear from what i wrote that I had already downloaded that collection; in fact I did so almost a year ago. It is confusing, but then, it's a far from perfect world.

dandelion, i'm impressed by your life-long endeavor at keeping such a list. I started doing the same thing back in 2012. All I really have is the order, sans dates. And I haven't bothered indicating when I've ended up starting another book before finishing the one prior. And in cases like the one you mentioned, I merely put down whatever the title is, and let it go at that. It is safe to say that the method I use with it is far from an exact science.

Thanks, I am now compiling a list on Goodreads.com.

I started keeping detailed Excel spreadsheets of all the short fiction that I read, about 12 years ago. I also have a detailed Excel list of all the short stories in my library, with the books they're in. (By "library" I mean a few shelves, and lots of cupboards, cabinets, boxes and crates of books.)

Dandelion, if a book consists entirely of books that were previously published in standalone form, you can legitimately claim to have read all the original books. For example, if you've read Classic Stories 1 and 2 (you have to take them together because of the scrambled contents), you've read four books. I would list this under the four original titles. Twice Twenty-Two is two books. Obviously, you cannot then claim to have read the compendium as a new book as well.

Isaac Asimov claimed something like 500 books (written, of course, not read), but many of these were anthologies in which the actual work he did was well short of a book's worth. I mean no disrespect to the great man! But my point is, by that analogy you're quite entitled to claim having read a book if it contains at least some new material (like THE STORIES OF RAY BRADBURY).

Thanks for answering. I know, it IS confusing! Generally, if I read several books which are then collected as in "---, the Complete Story," or "The --- Treasury," if there is an introduction I have no problem listing the original say three books and then the treasury with separate numbers. But when I read the standalone books My Father's Dragon, Elmer and the Dragon, and The Dragons of Blueland, by Ruth Gannett, I can legitimately claim to have read the collection Three Tales of My Father's Dragon, but as that didn't have an introduction I listed the three books separately with a notation, "Contained in Three Tales of My Father's Dragon," even though doing so made me feel slightly ripped off. I think all treasuries or compilations should have an introduction even if it's only to say these books are so great they needed to be collected in one volume. It would save all these judgement calls, which I do to avoid too much extra numbering on the list.

(It took me a moment to find these books as I had set them aside for a special shelf to put together when I can find, and then disprove, a quote by Ray that he went into a bookstore and found three books he had never heard of and "you can't do that on the internet." I have SO DAMN MANY books I either would have NEVER COME ACROSS AT ALL or seen and not known to pick up except for word on the internet--the dragon books being in the latter category, and I do recommend them--that I am collecting an arrangement to photograph, with one part of the shelf being books I actually saw in real life but would have passed over but for online recommendations, and another with books ordered online because I have never even SEEN a copy after around three decades of constantly frequenting thrift stores, used book stores, library book sales, and yard and estate sales. I hope all such books can even FIT on one shelf!) I do this although Ray has been dead for six years and will never see the picture or the list! That's just how I am!