Lyn Venable 9 min read

All bank clerk Henry Bemis wants is time enough to read a book, a simple wish forever thwarted by his nagging wife, his boss, and his own hopelessly myopic eyes.

Lyn Venable's 1953 story is a poignant, ironic post-apocalyptic classic. Sharp, unforgettable, superbly turned. Read it for the beloved tale that became a famous Twilight Zone episode, a bookish everyman who longs only to read, and the cruel, perfect irony that fate has in store for him, in one of the most memorable twist endings in all of science fiction.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

9 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).