Farewell Summer
By Ray Bradbury
(William Morrow, Hardcover, 9780061131547, 224pp.)
Publication Date: October 2006
Other Editions of This Title: Mass Market Paperback, Paperback
Categories: Historical - General
 |     |
In a summer that refuses to end, in the deceiving warmth of earliest October, civil war has come to Green Town, Illinois. It is the age-old conflict: the young against the elderly, for control of the clock that ticks their lives ever forward. The first cap-pistol shot heard 'round the town is dead accurate, felling an old man in his tracks, compelling town elder and school board despot Mr. Calvin C. Quartermain to marshal his graying forces and declare total war on the assassin, thirteen-year-old Douglas Spaulding, and his downy-cheeked cohorts. Doug and his cronies, however, are most worthy adversaries who should not be underestimated, as they plan and execute daring campaigns—matching old Quartermain's experience and cunning with their youthful enthusiasm and devil-may-care determination to hold on forever to childhood's summer. Yet time must ultimately be the victor, with valuable revelations for those on both sides of the conflict. And life waits in ambush to assail Doug Spaulding with its powerful mysteries—the irresistible ascent of manhood, the sweet surrender to a first kiss . . .
One of the most acclaimed and beloved of American storytellers, Ray Bradbury has come home, revisiting the verdant landscape of one of his most adored works, Dandelion Wine. More than fifty years in the making, the long-awaited sequel, Farewell Summer, is a treasure—beautiful, poignant, wistful, hilarious, sad, evocative, profound, and unforgettable . . . and proof positive that the flame of wonder still burns brightly within the irrepressible imagination of the incomparable Bradbury.
Ray Bradbury is the author of dozens of books and hundreds of stories. Among his best-known works are Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. An Emmy Award winner for his teleplay The Halloween Tree and an Academy Award nominee, Mr. Bradbury was also honored by the National Book Foundation with a medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Winner of a National Medal of Arts and a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation and named a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, France’s highest cultural award, he lives in Los Angeles.
“[B]eautiful imagery and well-crafted prose.”
-Chicago Sun-Times
“Creepier than [Dandelion Wine] but retains the elegiac tone and lovely descriptions of 1920s boyhood.”
-Library Journal
“An intriguing coda to one of Bradbury’s classics. ”
-Kirkus Reviews
“A touching meditation on memories, aging, and the endless cycle of birth and death.”
-Booklist
“Poignant, wise...Bradbury’s mature but fresh return to his beloved early writing conveys a depth of feeling.”
-Publishers Weekly
“Bradbury remains a master of inspired storytelling . . . The long-awaited, rewarding conclusion to an American classic.”
-Rocky Mountain News
 |
1Q84 Haruki Murakami Knopf |
 |
The Marriage Plot Jeffrey Eugenides Farrar, Straus, and Giroux |
 |
The Sense of an Ending Julian Barnes Knopf |
 |
Death Comes to Pemberley PD James Knopf |
