{"id":15773,"date":"2014-09-25T11:36:09","date_gmt":"2014-09-25T15:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=15773"},"modified":"2014-09-25T11:36:09","modified_gmt":"2014-09-25T15:36:09","slug":"read-my-review-of-a-ray-bradbury-biography-in-todays-washington-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2014\/09\/25\/read-my-review-of-a-ray-bradbury-biography-in-todays-washington-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Read my review of a Ray Bradbury biography in today&#8217;s <em>Washington Post<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you picked up today&#8217;s <em>Washington Post<\/em> this morning and turned to the Style section, you&#8217;d have seen a familiar name&#8212;mine! <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/RayBradburyReview.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/RayBradburyReview-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"RayBradburyReview\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-15774\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/RayBradburyReview-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/RayBradburyReview-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/RayBradburyReview-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/RayBradburyReview.jpg 1544w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ron Charles, editor of the Post&#8217;s <em>Book World<\/em>, had asked me to review  <em>Ray Bradbury Unbound<\/em>, the second installment in Jonathan R. Eller&#8217;s projected three-volume biography. (The first volume, <em>Becoming Ray Bradbury<\/em>, was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/entertainment\/books\/jonathan-r-ellers-becoming-ray-bradbury-reviewed-by-michael-dirda\/2011\/08\/15\/gIQAuTgzLJ_story.html\">reviewed by Michael Dirda<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>The book  was not all what I expected, for it was filled with heartbreak and disappointment, and sprinkled with such phrases as &#8220;missed opportunities,&#8221; &#8220;creative dead ends,&#8221; &#8220;never materialized,&#8221; &#8220;another deeply disappointing experience,&#8221; and &#8220;marked an ultimately irreversible decline.&#8221; Perhaps a reviewer who&#8217;s not also a writer struggling to get stories written in the face of life&#8217;s endless distractions would have reacted differently.<\/p>\n<p>You can read my review online at the <em>Washington Post <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/entertainment\/books\/review-ray-bradbury-unbound-by-jonathan-r-eller\/2014\/09\/24\/e30f5ed4-3dde-11e4-b03f-de718edeb92f_story.html\">here<\/a>. And if you do track down Eller&#8217;s book&#8212;which is certainly worth doing&#8212;please let me know how <em>you<\/em> felt about this second stage in Bradbury&#8217;s career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you picked up today&#8217;s Washington Post this morning and turned to the Style section, you&#8217;d have seen a familiar name&#8212;mine! Ron Charles, editor of the Post&#8217;s Book World, had asked me to review Ray Bradbury Unbound, the second installment in Jonathan R. Eller&#8217;s projected three-volume biography. (The first volume, Becoming Ray Bradbury, was reviewed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[490,29,207,529],"class_list":["post-15773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-michael-dirda","tag-my-writing","tag-ray-bradbury","tag-washington-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15773"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15784,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15773\/revisions\/15784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}