Listen to the Echoes

Ray Bradbury biographer Weller (fiction, Columbia Coll., Chicago; The Bradbury Chronicles) offers a thematically arranged collection of selections from his several interviews with Bradbury over the last ten years. Bradbury, who turns 90 this month, has been a prolific and influential writer, chiefly in the fantasy and science fiction genres, most famous probably for his Farenheit 451. Chapter titles here, such as "Famous Friends," "Politics," "Writing and Creativity," and "Faith," indicate the range of topics covered. Bradbury shares his wealth of experience, from his earliest memory (he says it is of his own birth), notables whom he has met (from George Burns to Mikhail Gorbachev), and his own writing. Weller is the quintessential interviewer who asks probing questions, then gets out of the way so that readers will have the feeling that Bradbury is talking to them. Bradbury comes across as honest, opinionated, passionate, and childlike. He sets aside two hours a day for writing, not nearly enough time, one would think, for all of the ideas still percolating in his head.