A few good stories in this collection, but on the whole it just felt a bit dirty, and most of it was unenjoyable. Fly Away Home was an excellent story about humans traveling to Mars, and the value of familiar surroundings. Pater Caninus had a dog taking confessions at a hospital, to the distress of a priest. Apple-core Baltimore was a study of childhood friendships and relationships, and A Literary Encounter handles the formative effects of what we read on our personality. ( )

A collection of short stories by the Master, these harken in style back to his earlier days of effortless whimsical fantasy. There is a nursing home dog who makes the rounds of those soon to die, listening patiently as they pour out their last thoughts as if he were human and had a collar. There is an elderly couple who convince themselves to break out of their fossilized routine, realizing by day's end that lifelong routines have their little points. Particularly touching are "Pieta Summer", a perhaps autobiographical story in which a boy suddenly realizes the true breadth of his father's love, "If Paths Must Cross Again", in which a new couple about to be separated by duty and World War II discover that their paths crossed years ago in their childhood town, and "A Literary Encounter", in which a couple who have been patterning their lives by the classics they read, re-discover their love by going back to writers who valued the true and fine in life, including an old favorite of mine, William Saroyan. I suspect that Ray Bradbury and I have read and loved many of the same books. ( )

One of Bradbury's final books, released in 2009. This is a broad collection of subjects, primarily mainstream in my opinion, and the flyleaf says it is a new collection of never-before-published stories. In his brief introduction Bradbury states,after discussing the first story: "The other stories, one by one, came to me throughout my life - from a very young age through my middle and later years. Every one of them has been a passion."

I got the feeling from that intro that these stories were probably ones put away in a file after writing, that maybe weren't his best and didn't have a place to go. Like songwriters and musicians, though, sometimes really good songs were born between albums, or didn't fit with the style of others, and slipped away until collected at a later date. I was hoping to find some of the "hidden gem" stories in this collection that might be like that. There are a couple of good stories in here. However, for the most part many of these stories are rather mediocre and unmemorable, bits of fluff. Let's call them lesser tales from the master. Some needed more polish, some were never fleshed out, and some others just aren't remarkable. A few I disliked or wondered why they had been written. One story, "Arrival and Departure" was also in "Summer Morning, Summer Night," published at about the same time.

There is one story in here that is nominally science fiction. Two rockets go to Mars. That is all the science fiction in the story. What the story is really about is explorers far from home.

Overall this was weak and disappointing and barely an "OK." ( )

This is a collection of short stories of all types, some better than others, but Ray Bradbury is always worth reading. ( )

Yet another excellent collection of stories from Ray Bradbury...several great ones, many good, only a couple of really weak ones and none that I would call bad (with the possible exception of "Pater Caninus"). From "The Reincarnate", about a man who rises from the grave and tries to pick up where he left off with his beloved ("Love depends on more than thought...because thought itself is built upon the senses"), to "A Literary Encounter" about a couple whose relationship reflects whatever he happens to be reading at the moment, these stories are brimming over with Bradbury's characteristic feeling and charm.

But my favorite story here, and now one of my all-time favorites, is "Un-pillow Talk". It opens with a couple who've just made passionate love, but we soon learn that they've just been friends up to this point and now worry that this will ruin the really great friendship they've had. So the story mainly consists of them sort of retracing their relationship, trying to talk themselves back to where they were before they made this terrible mistake. The ending is so sweet and absolutely perfect and left me feeling good for days.

I just picked this collection up from the public library, but I enjoyed it so much that I'm going to have to add it to my own personal library! ( )