America has no finer teller of tales than Ray Bradbury. For more than fifty years he has regaled us with wonders, enchanted us with memories, and startled us with simple truths, enabling us to view from fresh perspectives the world we inhabit, and see others we never dreamed existed.

Now the master treats us to another round -- eighteen brand -- new stories and seven previously published but never before collected-proof positive that his magic is as potent as ever. Here is a rich elixir distilled from the pungent fruit of experience and imagination, expertly prepared by a superior mixologist whose hand is sure and whose eyes and ears have long taken in the shouting, weeping, carping, reveling life all around him.

Sip the sweet innocence of youth, and the wisdom and folly -- of age. Taste the warm mysteries of summer and the bitterness of betrayed loves and abandoned places. This glass overflows with a heady brew that will set your mind spinning and carry you to remarkable locales: a house where time has no boundaries; a movie theater where deconstructed schlock is drunkenly reassembled into art; a faraway planet plagued by an epidemic of sorrow; a wheat field that hides a strangely welcome enemy. The comforts of arguments eternal; the addictive terror of a predawn phone call; the ghosts of dear friends, of errant sons and lost fathers, and of lovers both joyously remembered and never-to-be, are but a few of the ingredients that have gone into Bradbury's savory cocktail. And every satisfying swallow brings new surprises and revelations.

One More for the Road is superb refreshment served with wit, heart, and flair by the incomparable Bradbury. This one's on Ray.

Drink up