Welcome to the Monkey House was first published by Playboy Magazine. Playboy's published countless controversial stories by likewise provocative authors. In spite of this literary contribution, or perhaps because of it, the pinup publication has faced censorship around the world.

An author of his genius, his very individual voice, achieves an immortality -- or at least a vastly longer than normal lifespan. And to read his novels and short stories is to know Ray.

Is every friggin' person in America writing a novel? Yes, absolutely, every friggin' person in America is writing a novel or so it can seem and so drives me to such an outrageous hyperbole.

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury predicted a raft of later technological developments, among them flat-screen televisions, iPod earbuds, Bluetooth headsets, ATMs, and rolling news -- even the Facebook "wall."

Today would have been Ray Bradbury's 93rd birthday. Though Bradbury died last year on June 5, the literary great lived a very full life. In 1992, ...

Centered around a highly advanced humanoid alien race known as the Aurocearians, victims of a devastating blow when the titular Gods (a mercurial bunch), angry with the race's arrogant behaviors, curses them by vaporizing every female hindering any hope for breeding. So what is a cursed race to do?

When a great American author recommends a bookstore to you, you would be well-advised to listen. When he does it with enthusiasm and passion, which was the only way Ray Bradbury ever did anything, you would be well-advised not just to listen, but to take note.

War. Death. Despair. Oppression. Environmental ruin. Yup, when it comes to demoralizing literature, dystopian novels have it all! Yet many of us love this genre, and there are good reasons we do.

Excerpted from The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012. Introduction © 2012 by Ray Bradbury, Reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt...

Late science-fiction legend Ray Bradbury was actively investigated by the FBI during the 1960s for suspected Communist leanings, according to FBI file...

There, on a gracious green corner lot in West Los Angeles, where the mature palm trees rustle in the night wind and beads of dew gather on the ice plant, you can't miss it. The house. Even in the moonlight, the color, is unmistakable. The big, rambling house, is painted dandelion yellow.