I read this book from my Dad's library as a kid.It contains some great stories: Enormous Radio, Note for the Milkman, etc. Bradbury did an excellent job choosing this collection. I was glad to find it gaian. ( )

Ray Bradbury writes a lengthy introduction to this excellent anthology of stories he selected in 1951, and it includes a short one by himself that I just read in "S is for Space." It is an anthology of fantasy, with an emphasis on including stories by writers, some well known, that one would not normally associate with fantasy. As a result one finds in here stories by John Cheever, Christopher Isherwood, John Steinbeck, Shirley Jackson, Franz Kafka, Roald Dahl and many less familiar names. These are really a first rate batch of tales. I counted 26 stories, drawn from the pages of magazines such as "The New Yorker," "Cosmopolitan," "Harper's Magazine," "Esquire," "The Saturday Evening Post," and elsewhere. This proved to be a rather fun time travel trip to see things people were reading from the early 1930's to 1951. There is an excellent Franz Kafka tale in here, "The Penal Colony" which was published in English in 1941 but was first written in 1914. This is excellent storytelling with a real literary quality to most of it. There were only a couple of stories that I thought were just a little too silly or something.

There is a bit of what I consider mild science fiction mixed into the fantasy; sometimes the lines blur and we get science fantasy I suppose. A post-war dystopian future where civilization is completely gone doesn't seem like fantasy. A couple seem like straight mainstream fiction. I don't think there was a single story in this collection that I disliked, and the majority of these stories are sure to stir your mind up a little. These are interesting little tales! Bradbury did a great job as an editor. His own story, "The Pedestrian" is a short look at a dystopian-flavored future where a man goes walking at night.

A few highlights and interesting bits for me:

This anthology starts off very well with a story by Robert M. Coates, "The Hour After Westerly" which was first published in 'The New Yorker' in November 1947. This would be the perfect story for a mild Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode. A man starts off after work for a three hour drive back home. He's done the drive many times before and knows how long it takes and markers along the way, but he finds when checking his watch that this is taking much longer than it should and he clearly won't be home in time for dinner with the family at 7:30. At 7:30 he realizes he is still a good hour from home. He's lost an hour. Maybe he went off the wrong road without realizing it? Why doesn't he remember? Later trying to retrace his route on this drive things get even more unsettling. Did he stop at a bar and this was all a drunken blackout? Possible but not likely. So what happened? This has that subtle touch of strange about it that leaves one very unsettled by the end. Great little story.

What these stories share, regardless of subject, is good storytelling."The Laocoön Complex," a shortstory by J. C. Furnas is not one I would call a favorite but it was unusual and I liked it. Every time a man gets into a bathtub a 4 foot green snake appears as soon as he lays down. It goes down the drain, or he kills it, or captures it and takes it to a Doctor. A Psychiatrist sets up a bathtub in his office. The man lays down in it. Giant snake! Nothing seems to stop it from reappearing. Christopher Isherwood's piece, "I Am Waiting," is nothing terribly remarkable, but the story is told so well that it is a pleasure to read. It concerns a man who starts experiencing strange moments and comes to believe he is travelling forward in time just a little to events in his near future.

This is a terrific collection which I recommend. The full list of stories:

•vii • Introduction • (1951) • essay by Ray Bradbury
•1 • The Hour After Westerly • (1947) • shortstory by Robert M. Coates
•13 • Housing Problem • (1944) • shortstory by Henry Kuttner
•28 • The Portable Phonograph • (1941) • shortstory by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
•35 • None Before Me • (1949) • shortstory by Sidney Carroll
•46 • Putzi • (1935) • shortstory by Ludwig Bemelmans
•51 • The Demon Lover (AKA The Phantom Lover) • (1949) • shortstory by Shirley Jackson
•66 • Miss Winters and the Wind • (1946) • shortstory by Christine Noble Govan
•72 • Mr. Death and the Redheaded Woman (AKA The Rider on the Pale Horse)• (1950) • shortstory by Helen Eustis
•80 • Jeremy in the Wind • (1949) • shortstory by Nigel Kneale
•84 • The Glass Eye • (1944) • shortstory by John Keir Cross
•99 • Saint Katy the Virgin • (1938) • shortstory by John Steinbeck
•107 • Night Flight • (1944) • shortstory by Josephine Johnson
•113 • The Cocoon • (1946) • shortstory by John B. L. Goodwin
•130 • The Hand • (1947) • shortstory by Wessel Hyatt Smitter
•140 • The Sound Machine • (1949) • shortstory by Roald Dahl
•154 • The Laocoön Complex • (1937) • shortstory by J. C. Furnas
•165 • I Am Waiting • (1939) • shortstory by Christopher Isherwood
•174 • The Witnesses • (1944) • shortstory by William Sansom
•179 • The Enormous Radio • (1947) • shortstory by John Cheever
•190 • Heartburn • (1951) • shortstory by Hortense Calisher
•200 • The Supremacy of Uruguay • (1933) • shortstory by E. B. White
•204 • The Pedestrian • (1951) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
•208 • A Note for the Milkman • (1950) • shortstory by Sidney Carroll
•219 • The Eight Mistresses • (1937) • shortstory by Jean Hrolda
•225 • In the Penal Colony • (1919) • novelette by Franz Kafka
•252 • Inflexible Logic • (1940) • shortstory by Russell Maloney ( )

The best book of short stories I've ever read, selected by Bradbury to showcase stories not well known, by authors who didn't write SF. Wish somebody would publish a nice hardcover edition of this. ( )

An anthology of stories selected by Ray Bradbury. Bradbury attempted to find stories of fantasy and unreality written by authors rarely associated with the genre. Hence the authors selected include Roald Dahl, John Steinbeck, John Cheever, E.B. White and many others, including a chilling little tale by Bradbury, "The Pedestrian". A successful collection of stories by many diverse writers. ( )

Contents: Putzi; Heartburn; Note for the Milkman; None Before Me; Enormous Radio; Portable Phonograph; Hour After Westerly; Glass Eye; Sound Machine; Mr Death and the Redheaded Woman; Laocoon Complex; Demon Lover; Cocoon (Ludwig Bemelmans; Hortense Calisher; Sidney Carroll; John Cheever; Walter van Tilburg Clark; Robert M. Coates; John Kier Cross; Roald Dahl; Helen Eustis; J. C. Furnas; Shirley Jackson; Christine Noble Govan; Jean Hrolda)