Libraries raised me.
You’re a hopeless romantic,” said Faber. “It would be funny if it were not serious. It’s not books you need, it’s some of the things that once were in books. The same things could be in the ‘parlor families’ today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios, and televisors, but are not. No,no it’s not books at all you’re looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type or receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us. Of course you couldn’t know this, of course you still can’t understand what i mean when i say all this. You are intuitively right, that’s what counts.
The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.
Quoting Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), who passed away on Tuesday, at 91-years-old. He wasn’t one for technology and perhaps not electronic tributes either.
But here’s ours anyway.
Quotes via GoodReads. Click pictures to embiggen.
He had no love for eReaders either (which I tend to agree with him on that), but he was a damn good writer.
Recent Purchases (from top to bottom):
The Wallace by Nigel Tranter
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
Yestermorrow by Ray Bradbury
Farther Away by Jonathan Franzen
No End of Vision by Alan Birklebach & Karla K. Morton
The Man From Cross Plains ed. by Dennis McHaney
Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner by Paul M. Sammon
Cross Plains Universe Ed. by Scott A Cupp & Joe R. Lansdale
Twilight of the Elites by Christopher Hayes
Bringing Metal to the Children by Zakk Wylde
In One Person by John Irving
Dark Valley of Destiny: The Life of Robert E. Howard by L. Sprague de Camp
A Means to Freedom: The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard (1933-1936)
A Means to Freedom: The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard (1930-1932)

Ray Bradbury, the science fiction fantasy master who transformed his childhood dreams and Cold War fears into telepathic Martians, lovesick sea monsters, and, in uncanny detail, the high-tech, book-burning future of Fahrenheit 451, has died. He was 91. He died Tuesday night, his daughter said Wednesday. Alexandra Bradbury did not have additional details.
[Click the link to read the whole story]