RAY BRADBURY - IN MEMORIAM GROUP READ OF DANDELION WINE

As requested by Roni - I've set up a thread for this.

Great! You said this weekend--any time at all? My Saturday will be pretty busy until evening PDT, but Sunday is pretty open.

I am planning to join in... why do we need a thread?

I'll join in too, via audiobook.

I've added this thread to the group wiki.

Haven't read Dandelion wine in years, can't wait to re-read it.

Why? One, so people can see the thread and realize what's happening, even if they aren't reading Paul or Caro's threads, if they want to join in. Two, so we can talk about it. ;-)

huh. Okay..

Are there talking rules? What sorts of things do people post ?
I have never done a group read, and I am a little startled to find that this has turned into one. I guess I will watch and see?

Kath - It will be fine. People just usually post their thoughts about what they are reading or quotes that they really liked. I have never read Dandelion Wine before, so I am excited to read it with all of you. Check out the Steinbeck threads if you want to see the kinds of things that people post. Usually the only rule is that if you are going to post spoilers, then let people know that, so that they can not read the spoiler if they want. It's fun!

ok.. got it!
thanks!
I will probably do more lurking than posting..

See, and that's fine, too!

I'm in! I have a yellowed battered copy that I was thrilled to find at the monster book fair last year.

This is my copy

and here is the title page



I also had him sign my old copies of The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and Something Wicked This Way Comes on that visit.

* I have turned a lovely envy green*

Green is so pretty on you!

Roni - Thanks for sharing. That is just too cool!

Aw, gee thanks :)

I'm wearin' the green, too, Roni. How cool that you have those signed by him.

Now I have to see whether we still have my copy of Dandelion Wine. I don't how books manage to migrate elsewhere on their own, but it sure happens. My wife noticed most of our Vonneguts ran off together.

I've found my copy so will be reading.

Another "green" with envy here:)

Ta da ... I knew if I looked around long enough I'd find the thread to this group read. Now to star it so I don't lose it. I've got chores tomorrow, but will try and start in the morning for a bit before I get started on them.

>13 ronincats: I love your signed book. So emphatically signed it is too.

And I love Rays watch in the top pic!

I rather like his cat. I am a little partial to black cats...

Me too, Kath, especially if they have a little white nose and white paws

Well, guess what? I snagged a copy! I stopped by the library, on the way home from work, to pick up and drop off, (my usual routine) and they had a copy. Funny, I checked online last night and it said my local did not have a copy.
I'll have to bump my current book, so there's a casualty after all, but it'll get over it.

Kath- Don't worry! These usually are light, (sometimes), loose and fun! Nothing to fret about.

For anyone looking for a place to put this in the TIOLI, it fits challenge #5 (the automobile challenge) - The Lion was an automobile built in Adrian, Michigan, United States, by the Lion Motor Car Company from 1909-12.

Thanks Mamie - I'll add it there.

I have started reading and am enjoying the story. Still not sure why it is classified as SF apart from the fact that is what Bradbury is famous for.

Impressed I must say by how many have been able to beg, steal and borrow copies to join in (well done Mark) -

About 20% through already and had he written all his work in this vein, he would have been remembered for his poeticism rather than Science Fiction. This certainly has plenty of beautifully described fiction with very little science and, of course, I like it all the better for that!

Makes me recall my own summers, which seemed endless surprisingly considering England's reputation as a hub for precipitation, playing in the farmer's fields, country walks, dogs, rabbits gambolling through the meadows - and I realise my youth has left me long ago.

Took my son to the KLCC twin towers so he could go on a date with his half-polish/half-english girlfriend Natalie - he was full of the nervous joy of the first proper date and my heart swelled. Returned to see him with tenderness in his eyes and availing a parting peck on her cheek and I was proud of him. He then gave me most of the $35 dollars back I had given him as it seems he let her pay for most of the date including the cinema tickets!

************POSSIBLE SPOILER BELOW IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE BOOK YET******************
************************************************************************************

This book is in itself a Time Machine. It is, perhaps more than any other book
I have ever read, filed with magic. Just like the Happiness Machine, it makes me
happy! And then, it makes me sad.... for summers left behind.

Kath, I couldn't agree more! That is a wonderfully accurate description.

The beauty of Bradbury's descriptive language is one of the things he is remembered for, Paul. One of my favorite short stories of his is the title story of I Sing the Body Electric--definitely sf and with language so beautiful it brings you to tears. And in Something Wicked This Way Comes the lushness of the language just sweeps you along.

I started reading it this morning and the introduction alone was beautiful. But now about a fifth in, his poeticism is just so lyrical. What a great time to read this too ... it's a cool but beautiful sunny summer's day today. After I had gone for a short run in the woods along the Concord River, having caught sight of a large beaver swimming out of his dam, a couple of bright orioles swooping over my head and a majestic blue heron standing in the wetlands looking over his kingdom, I sat out on my deck with an everything bagel covered with thin slices of oak smoked salmon and a few capers, a tall glass of iced tea and.....my book! In less than 5 mins, I was swept away into 12 year old Douglas's world.

SPOILER ALERT
I loved how Douglas had Mr Sanderson remember what it was like to be a boy with new tennis shoes again. You could just feel all that child-like exuberance just bursting out from him (Douglas, not Mr Sanderson) when he describes how he's be flying in and out, around and about in the new shoes running errands for Mr Sanderson ...and in doing so, gets his new pair of shoes.

Had to come in to do some house chores and I didn't want to stay out in the sun too long since I didn't put sunscreen on, so an hour was more than enough .... for now. ;-)

Wow, that's sounds like a just beautiful day, Caro. The story of the shoes is one of my favorites ever. I always think of it when I get a new pair of running (now walking) shoes. And it is a perfect time to read this. Summer! What a wonderful book.

I may not read all of Dandelion Wine this weekend because I'm quite taken by Cheryl Strayed's Wild: From Lost to Found, and we have an all day book fair tomorrow. But I'm already enjoying revisiting the world Ray Bradbury created and remembered.

Couldn't get my hands on a copy of Dandelion Wine fast enough, but I'm reading Fahrenheit 451 in solidarity. This has been one of my favorite books since I was 13 but I've not reread it in a couple of years. No matter how many times I pick it up though, I never cease to feel a rush of clandestine excitement and an overpowering desire to squirrel books away in an attic where I can read amongst the piles and feel like I'm saving something precious for humanity. Oh how I love it.

(formerly atlargeintheworld)

I couldn't get a copy that quickly, either. I was able to request it as an audiobook (CD's for my commute) from an interlibrary loan. It sounds like it will be a lyrical listen and I am looking forward to it.

In the meantime, I'll be reading Something Wicked this Way Comes for the GD Group read.

Testing!

And done....*sigh*

Dandelion Wine isn't available in Kindle. Library was closed. Not enough time to order from Book Passage or Powell's. Had to resort to Barnes & Noble but I finally got a copy...now, prep a bubble bath and begin :-)

Starting to resemble a prune so will continue reading in the living room. Thought I would stop to report some of my favorite lines so far:

"...when truths leaped out of bushes like quail before gunshot"

"Finest lace there is," said Dad quietly. And he was gesturing up through the trees above to show them how it was woven across the sky or how the sky was woven into the trees, he wasn't sure which?"

"But by the end of summer, every year, you always found out, you always knew, you couldn't really jump over rivers and trees and houses in (your new shoes), and they were dead. But this was a new year, and he felt that this time, with this new pair of shoes, he could do anything, anything at all."

I'm about 25% through Dandelion Wine and I'm enjoying this book immensely. I recognised that it would make me feel the same way as I did when I read Cannery Row after reading the first chapter so I've been reading slowly and trying not to rush through it.

*SPOILER*

Quote that I liked:
Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are, Plato in the peonies, Socrates force-growing his own hemlock. A man toting a sack of blood-manure across his lawn is kin to Atlas letting the world spin easy on his shoulders. As Samuel Spaulding, Esquire, once said 'Dig in the earth, delve in the soul'.

Just finished the story about Mrs Bentley ... how very sad ..... I'm going back to re-read the bit about Grandfather Spaudling and the lawnmower because that gave me the warm fuzzies and I need warm fuzzies right now.

I started reading Dandelion Wine today after debating with myself for a couple of days which of his books to read. It immediately brought forth all kinds of memories as some aspects of childhood in the fifties weren't all that different from the things Douglas and Tom were experiencing. -- Grapes eaten while standing next to the vines, new sneakers every summer, time to just be alive.

Caro - loved your description of reading the book in climatic conditions that mirror the book.

Reba - I'm sure the book will reward your hard work in obtaining a copy - well done!

Lisa - the book is eminently quotable isn't it?

Kath, Roni, Joe, Janet, Tim (what are you testing?), Leah, PW?, Calm, Mamie, Mark, Megan, Jim, Nora and Autumnice- thanks for joining in.

Finished - a wonderful lyrical piece of writing, full of memories.

Paul Tim was testing the new About feature on the work and author pages - see here http://www.librarything.com/topic/138246

calm, you are like the LT guru :)

I lurk a lot and Tim tweeted it:)

ahhh I missed the tweet. I am not much of a lurker.. most of the time.
I mostly stay within 75ers and keep up with as many as I can. I try to
leave time for reading and other things.. lol. I am duly impressed!

I've almost done too - going to sit in my room, listen to some music, sip some Erni produced coffee and finish my trip through small town mid-America in it's coming of age.

Calm thanks for that - Tim - I hope the test panned out.

Finished last night before heading to sleep, after Douglas closed down the scene.

Lisa, that was a great analogy--this book IS like Cannery Row in the way it is a series of anecdotes rather than a single plot line, bringing in recurring and new characters along the way and in the beauty of the descriptive language.

pwhaile, I agree. Growing up in the midwest outside a small town in the 50s--there were lots of things that hadn't changed all that much that I could easily recognize.

So, would Bradbury have been a declutterer? A wine drinker? A connoisseur of memories?

*sigh* .... I finished it this morning ....and I'm so thankful once again that Ray Bradbury had chosen to share his creativity with the rest of us mere mortals. I had Douglas and his childlike delight in life in my mind when I woke and went for a run this morning just as the sun's rays were peeking through the leaves in the trees. The dappled effect of the sunlight through the leaves and the smell of dew on the dirt trail and grass put a spring in my feet. If I could have, I would have sang while I ran ...but I was too busy trying to gulp air.

Even if I didn't go through the same events that Douglas Spaulding did at 12 years old, the experiences I went through generated similar feelings of exuberance, sheer delight as well as what seemed at the time to me, to be earth-shattering disappointment.

Thank you, thank you, Mr Bradbury.

Thank you Mr. Bradbury, thank you whoever started this GR. I had never considered reading Bradbury because I thought he was a sci-fi writer and that's "not my thing". Dandelion Wine is such a lovely book. The story was like a warm hug and the language so beautiful ... I just loved it. So what other Bradbury should I read?

He said repeatedly that he only wrote ONE sci fi...
no one listened, sadly

eta

Bradbury did not write “sci-fi,” he said, but fantasy, which he defined as “a depiction of the unreal,” giving as an example “The Martian Chronicles,” because it was a story that could not happen.

“Fahrenheit 451″ was his only sci-fi book, he said, because it was a “depiction of the real” — or of something that could actually happen in a totalitarian state.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/06/science-fiction-legend-ray-bradbury-dies-a...

is one of the places I have seen it mentioned.

QUESTION:

I read Dandelion Wine (Grand Master Editions)
Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Spectra (March 1, 1985)
ISBN-10: 0553277537

I have seen some others listing different page counts..
How many pages and what edition did you read? And
I wonder what the difference is ??

Mine is this one


Corgi SF Collectors Library 1975
Paperback 184 pages

Wonder why you have an extra 70 pages Kath?

No idea. I don't have the book at hand, I loaned it to my niece ... but I will have to
ask her to look at it and see if there is an explanation? It is called Grand Master Edition,
whatever that means, so maybe some things edited out were put back? It is also available as a short
story in the Vintage Bradbury book, so I imagine there are several versions? Interesting.
I just happened to see that roni, ( I think ) posted a page count. It made me wonder, as I knew
that mine was longer than that. Interesting..

Just checked out the Look Inside Feature on Amazon and yours has an introduction, not sure how long that was.

Also I think there must be some difference in type as the first section ends on page 3 of that sample while mine ends on page 2. I guess it all adds up:)

The introduction was rather long, and well done :) I have to have a look at it.

I downloaded from my library's website what I thought was an audiobook of Dandelion Wine, but it turned out to be a Radio Play adaptation, which was adapted by Ray Bradbury. It wasn't what I wanted, but I still feel like I honored him this weekend.

I feel like you did, too!

My old and yellowed Bantam paperback has 184 pages, no extras and tiny print. I've been reading slowly between other things and am about halfway through. I suspect that when I read it at 18 I was in the wrong place in life to really appreciate the writing and the stories, and still it stayed on my shelves all these years through several purges of the library.

(Tricia)

I read the Grand Masters Edition, and discounting the introduction, is 239 pages long. Same edition that Kath read, I guess .. just checking the ISBN .. yup, same one

Kath - my edition has 267 pages, and a very nice introduction written by Ray Bradbury himself in 1974, which is not included in the page count.



Hardcover: 288 pages (the story itself is 267 pages long)
Publisher: Avon Books (February 1, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0380977265
ISBN-13: 978-0380977260
Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 1 x 7.3 inches

Caro.. did the intro count in the page count? Drat it! I wish I had the book in my hands..

Kath my version is a very attractive new version issued by Harper Voyager:


The book has nice large font for my dodgy eyes and is 319 pages long.
Glad I started this GR which is something I don't often do - I too hadn't realised that Bradbury could write so wistfully and poetically about days gone by.

Finished the book and I will certainly look up some of his others as his ideas were liberally interspersed with humanity which is something missing in some of the other writing of the SF genre.

As dhaile said, and I have that same Bantam edition, no intro and type size. The Bantam has really tiny type, and if every three pages in your edition is 2 in ours, that explains it.

Here is my meagre and truncated review from my own thread.

43.

Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

Group read in memoriam for the passing of Ray Bradbury last week.
I think this book is about the cycle of life and the passing of the seasons and of coming to terms - with mortality, with the passing of the seasons and with life as it is.
Poetically told and beautifully written this is not in the normal sense a novel or story, but a collection of incidents from a summer in a small Illinois town in the 1920's.
Not so much science in the fiction but it certainly is magical.

I know this is a tad late, but I was reading the afterward in the back of my copy of Fahrenheit 451 and came across this quote from Bradbury that I thought everyone might appreciate.

Since writing {Fahrenheit 451}, I have spun more stories, novels, essays, and poems about writers than any other writer in history that I can think of. I have written poems about Melville, Melville and Emily Dickinson, Emily Dickinson and Charles Dickens, Hawthorne, Poe, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and along the way I compared Jules Verne and his Mad Captain to Melville and his equally obsessed mariner. I have scribbled poems about librarians, taken night trains with my favorite authors across the continental wilderness, staying up all night gabbling and drinking, drinking and chatting. I warned Melville, in one poem, to stay away from land (it never was his stuff!) and turned Bernard Shaw into a robot, so as to conveniently stow him abroad a rocket and wake him on the long journey to Alpha Centauri to hear his Prefaces piped off his tongue and into my delighted ear. I have written a Time Machine story in which I hum back to sit at the deathbeds of Wilde, Melville, and Poe to tell of my love and warm their bones in their last hours... But, enough. As you can see, I am madness maddened when it comes to books, writers, and the great granary silos where their wits are stored.

Wonderful! Thanks for sharing that..

I live near Waukegan, IL, the city (of about 90,000 or so) on which this book is based (and Ray Bradbury's hometown). Sad to say that, I've never read Dandelion Wine but hope to remedy that soon.

I didn't realize this was a group read but am glad I found this thread!!

Knocked it out on a plane ride yesterday. Wow, Bradbury was amazing!

Just dropping in to mention Farewell Summer, the sequel to Dandelion Wine. I read them a couple of years ago.

Here are a couple of quotes from Bradbury, on the publication of Farewell Summer:

"Looking back I realize that I never had a day when I was depressed or suffered melancholia; the reason being that I discovered that I was alive and loved the gift and wanted to celebrate it in my story."

"I do not use my intellect to write my stories and books; I have a gut reaction to the things that my subconscious gives me. "

Source: http://www.raybradbury.com/inhiswords.html

great quotes. Childhood used to be different. Less frenetic, more soothing..