B.W.'s Book Report: Bradbury Speaks

Seven years ago I wrote about unexpectedly finding a new Ray Bradbury book in the store, on a day that was painfully discouraging for reasons I can no longer remember. I've been a Bradbury fan since high school, and such is the power of his words on me that whatever depressed me that day was chased away forever.

He always finds a turn of the phrase to enchant me, ever since the opening words of the opening story in "R is for Rocket," the paperback collection I purchased after hearing that this Bradbury fella was pretty good: "There was this fence where we pressed our faces and felt the wind turn warm and held to the fence and forgot who we were or where we came from but dreamed of who we might be and where we might go ..."

Bradbury wrote my favorite book about writing, "Zen in the Art of Writing," which is not so much about the mechanics of telling a ripping story - although some of that is in there - but unleashing the part of you that understands how much fun writing is: "Every day I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together. Now, it's your turn: "Jump!"

The new collection of essays, "Bradbury Speaks," is not quite as great as "Zen" but it's full of the same prose poetry that puts a spell on the reader: "Do things, then find out what you've done ... jump off cliffs as I do and build your wings on the way down. No blueprints, no plans. Just jump."

The book I found on that discouraging day was "Driving Blind," and Bradbury has written a half-dozen books since I wrote how sad that he was 78 and not going to "Live forever!" - the exhortation he wrote to his grandchildren in the dedication. Now that he's 85, I wonder if he just might - and of course, as long as people are enchanted by space travel and dandelion wine and things that go bump in the night, he will anyway.