Dandelion Wine is one I bounced off of during my initial Bradbury infatuation around age 11 or 12, but in my 30s have found to be excellent. It is, in part, abo

Dandelion Wine is one I bounced off of during my initial Bradbury infatuation around age 11 or 12, but in my 30s have found to be excellent. It is, in part, about experiencing the world as a child, but is probably not something most (to put it mildly) children can appreciate, if that makes sense. I did have a fair bit of exposure to small midwestern town & country life as a kid, and a lot more second-hand via my parents, and I can't discern how much of my appreciation of the story is due to that. To someone with—for example—only urban, coastal experience, would it hit anywhere near as hard as it does for me? Will the next group of people turning 30, who've never seen a house in the US with actual you-have-to-go-work-a-pump-by-hand-to-get-water well water, with a wood burning stove in the kitchen that sees daily use, et c., be able to relate to it as I do, which relation may itself be far weaker than people who grew up like that full-time? I'm not sure. His short stories are great. There were two thick hardback volumes published, each collecting 100(!) stories, that'll give you plenty to chew on. Widely available used, pretty cheap. Unless you dove really deep on Bradbury in high school, odds are much of it will be new to you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stories_of_Ray_Bradbury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stories_of_Ray_Bradbury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradbury_Stories:_100_of_His_Most_Celebrated_Tales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradbury_Stories:_100_of_His_M... No repeats between the two volumes. 200 total stories. Does include most or all of The Martian Chronicles, which I prefer to read on its own, personally, though these might be useful for filling in gaps since IIRC they contain a couple stories that weren't in every printing of The Martian Chronicles.