Acclaimed biographer and Bradbury scholar Sam Weller spent more than a decade interviewing Ray Bradbury, who admitted, “Sam Weller knows more about my life than I do.” Revealed in Weller and Bradbury’s conversations, collected in Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews, is a vivid portrait of the author. A creative genius, an opinionated and occasionally contrarian thinker, “and a nostalgic futurist,” Bradbury longed for yesterday even as he looked toward tomorrow.
During the process of conducting research for the book, noted Los Angeles photographer Zen Sekizawa photographed Bradbury’s home and decades of his accumulated possessions. Her photographs present an alternate portrait of Bradbury—one that is more poignant now that his personal possessions have been sold at auction and his home of more than half a century razed.
Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews is the definitive collection of interviews with this American icon, illustrated with Sekizawa’s stunning color photographs (including previously unpublished images). Originally issued as a paperback in 2010 by Stop Smiling Books and Melville House Publishing, Listen to the Echoes is now available as a full-color, larger-format hardcover edition with a new final chapter by Weller about Bradbury’s legacy since his death in 2012, and dozens of new photographs from the Bradbury archive. Also new to this edition are essays by Margaret Atwood and Frank Darabont.
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012), the poetic and visionary author of such classics as Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and The Illustrated Man, was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Bradbury’s sway over contemporary culture is towering—Mikhail Gorbachev, Alfred Hitchcock, and David Bowie all counted themselves as fans, to name only a very few.
Limited Edition
The limited version comes in an edition of 300, is printed on silver foil, and wrapped in a clear poly book jacket. It includes a “library card” signed by contributors Margaret Atwood, Frank Darabont, Black Francis, and Sam Weller.
Edited by J.C. Gabel
Foreword by Black Francis
Afterword essays by Margaret Atwood and Frank Darabont
Designed by Benjamin Woodlock
Original photography by Zen Sekizawa
Hat & Beard Press #10
