Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview: And other Conversations (The Last Interview Series)

Great book and story telling, short but sweet

The shortcoming of the book is that there isn't more of it. Admittedly, the project being what it is, there is a lot of good material here, for Bradbury certainly trusted his interviewer. For me as a writer, it's very inspiring to read what Ray has to say, about his career, about his choices, about writing in general. It wasn't until recently that I realized how profoundly Ray Bradbury had influenced my own writing style, mainly because I don't read his works as frequently as I do others. But once I did recognize how much he had added to my outlook as a writer, I came to value greatly books such as this. You will hear his voice, but more importantly, you will feel Ray's joy in life and joy in storytelling. Both of those are precious elements for the heart of a writer. This book is well worth reading.

I am a huge Bradbury fan. These interviews are all interesting but some are repetitious and poorly presented. Could have used some better editing. Bradbury is a 20th century literary giant and deserves better. However, I recommend this book because it contains the words of the master. You can do your own editing.

Not much that I hadn't already read about Bradbury. I was disappointed with this book.

Excellent. A number of great interviews to help bring Bradbury to the forefront of thought.

Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview, edited by Sam Weller, is a bit of a misnomer. It’s actually several interviews, conducted over the last two years of Bradbury’s life, plus a handful of rough essays dictated by Bradbury to Weller, his long-time biographer. Despite this, the book is relatively slim, coming in at about 90 pages, with a lot of white space. This is not meant, though, to be an in-depth look at (or listen to) Bradbury; for that you’ll want to turn to other sources, including Weller’s The Bradbury Chronicles and The Bradbury Interviews. This is just a chance to hear the near-final words of a true legend, and that alone makes it worth your time I’d say.Along with the relatively small amount of material, there is also some repetition of well-known stories. So those well versed in Bradbury’s history will recognize Bradbury’s references to seeing a Mr. Electro at a carnival (appearing in Something Wicked This Way Comes) when he was a child, or to working on the script of Moby Dick. But as Weller says in his introduction, he did try to limit such repetition, so the familiar references are present, but not at any great length. Unfortunately, because some of the interviews are public ones, where Bradbury took questions from the audience, some questions are not particularly probing or substantive, and the same could be said about some of Bradbury’s’ responses.That all said, there were several moments that either informed, tickled, enthralled, or moved me (sometimes simultaneously). For instance, I’d somehow missed or had forgotten that the folks at NASA had let Bradbury drive the Mars Rover for a while. So fantastically appropriate, of course, for the writer so associated with Mars via his Martian Chronicles, but also so fantastically ironic, as Bradbury has never actually driven a car. I loved his idea of a mummy statue outside the library that asks you “Where would you like to go in the library” and when you answer:for the young and young at heart, he sends you down a rabbit hole into the library. When you slide down and arrive, there are books all around, and by every shelf there is a different mummy and you speak to them and ask, “What’s on this shelf?” and it tells you . . .Who wouldn’t love going to that library?There were other such moments: his explanation of why magicians and writers are so similar, his grief over his cat’s death, his idea of life as just an interruption in a wider, better dream, and so on.My one complaint is I would have liked to have some of Bradbury’s claims end or footnoted. These are the recollections of a frail 90-year-old, relating some events from 60 or 70 years ago, and so it would have been nice to know whether all he was saying was true or not, especially when it came to some pretty strong claims, as when he accused Rod Serling of stealing ideas. I can see why Weller would want to just have Bradbury’s words speak for themselves, but I still would have preferred at least some verification (or not).So, a slim work without a lot of text, some of which is possibly familiar or a little banal or a bit repetitive, and some of which may just be poorly recalled. But if you’re a true fan of Bradbury’s work, or just love the guy for not just his work but for his outsized influence and his outlook on life, then you’ll certainly find some bits (small bits quickly read) of enjoyment in here. And you’ll mourn again the hole left by the man who recapped his own life by saying, “Everything I did was pure love. Pure love. And if you live that way, you’ve had a great life.” He did, and luckily for many of us, we got to share his life’s more imaginative moments.

Man, have I loved Ray Bradbury since I was thirteen. Throughout the intervening twenty-five years, he has grown on me, and I have reread just about all of his books at least once. I picked up The Halloween Tree for the first time just the other day and fell in love with something I had never experienced in his work prior and loved it. Of course, finding out Melville House printed his final interviews with Sam Weller, I jumped at getting a copy.The book is a collection of a variety of final conversations and transcriptions that Weller completed, spending a great deal of time with his mentor leading through his final years. This book is truly a wonderful portrait of a man's final experiences on the planet – a man expecting to live to one hundred years old, who misses his wife and his dogs, and who has led a literary life of such sheer magnificent joy. He talks about his work, a little bit about his process and history, gives insight into the genesis of some of his ideas, and reflects on living on a planet and living a life that has truly meant something. Bradbury wasn't a genius of literature by accident, but in these interviews it is clear that his ability to have vision and enjoy having such a huge part in dreaming up things that we take for granted today – this is something that he treasures. He almost sounds like he has always appreciated everything, and found wonder around every corner.While I wasn't entirely impressed with all of Weller's lines of questioning (which at the cons had a few that were lavishing praise on Bradbury and then asking a question about why that was so awesome – sort of reminiscent of the Paul McCartney / Chris Farley SNL interview), I am sure there was a practical reason that he asked some of them in the way he did. I am convinced at the very least because of the obvious caliber of their personal relationship – and I also know I would have been way worse than Chris Farley and hardly able to complete a sentence. But honestly, that intimacy and comfort bled through every answer, and I can't think that I would have liked anyone other than Wells to complete a final series of interviews of one of the greatest American writers who ever lived. A fine little book.

Good condition and all pages were unmarked! Happy with this purchase

Horrible printing with multiple missing letters on every page, horrible reading experience. Makes such a great book into such a horrible ordeal. Shame.