Above link not working? Click here to launch Zoom session

Join us on Thursday at 3PM to chat about the book!

Embroidery

by Ray Bradbury

This week in the book club we are reading the short story "Embroidery" by Ray Bradbury. A very short tale, Bradbury manages to squeeze in a great deal of depth and character into this story.

In Ray Bradbury's short story "Embroidery," women work frantically to sew back the world that surrounds them before it ends in an apocalyptic manner: 

"Each woman looked to her own hands as if suddenly she had found her heart beating there."

The story "Embroidery" by Ray Bradbury is very short in length. The plot of the story takes place within a period of ten minutes. For these ten minutes the main characters, three women are preparing embroidered patterns.

The author describes one of their works which includes: a flower, man, road, sun and a house; every detail is depicted carefully. It is a beautiful scene with one flaw in it: the man standing on the road had something wrong with his face.

Read the book online: Embroidery by Ray Bradbury 

About the Author

Ray Douglas Bradbury, American novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and poet, was born August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. He graduated from a Los Angeles high school in 1938. Although his formal education ended there, he became a "student of life," selling newspapers on L.A. street corners from 1938 to 1942, spending his nights in the public library and his days at the typewriter. He became a full-time writer in 1943, and contributed numerous short stories to periodicals before publishing a collection of them, Dark Carnival, in 1947.

His reputation as a writer of courage and vision was established with the publication of The Martian Chronicles in 1950, which describes the first attempts of Earth people to conquer and colonize Mars, and the unintended consequences. Next came The Illustrated Man and then, in 1953, Fahrenheit 451, which many consider to be Bradbury's masterpiece, a scathing indictment of censorship set in a future world where the written word is forbidden. In an attempt to salvage their history and culture, a group of rebels memorize entire works of literature and philosophy as their books are burned by the totalitarian state. Other works include The October Country, Dandelion Wine, A Medicine for Melancholy, Something Wicked This Way Comes, I Sing the Body Electric!, Quicker Than the Eye, and Driving Blind. In all, Bradbury has published more than thirty books, close to 600 short stories, and numerous poems, essays, and plays. His short stories have appeared in more than 1,000 school curriculum "recommended reading" anthologies.

On the occasion of his 80th birthday in August 2000, Bradbury said, "The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me. The feeling I have every day is very much the same as it was when I was twelve. In any event, here I am, eighty years old, feeling no different, full of a great sense of joy, and glad for the long life that has been allowed me. I have good plans for the next ten or twenty years, and I hope you'll come along."

What is the book club?

Join us every week for a book club, each week we will read a new short story of part of a larger book, the books will be made available as an audio book and we will meet as a group via zoom to chat about the story. All are welcome, hope to see you there. 

How to join the club to chat

The zoom link to join will apear above on this page at 3PM on Thursday. To join you will need a phone/tablet or laptop with a built in camera and microphone (most modern devices come with this) you may need to download the zoom app onto your phone if you are using a phone to join.

Sign up if you would like to receive an email remeinder of the book club, to do this you must first create a profile.

Create a profile now