By James Lomuscio / Special Correspondent / Stamford Advocate

Sam Weller says his lifelong love affair with Ray Bradbury's science fiction writing began in the womb.

"I read Ray Bradbury before I was born," he told an audience of about 25 at Norwalk Community College's General Re Forum Saturday morning. "My father used to read Bradbury's short-story collection, 'The Illustrated Man,' to my mother when she was pregnant with me.

At age 11, Weller says he found the copy of that very book and voraciously read every page.

"There was a majesty to the poetry of it, a balance to the musicality of the writing with his imagination of concepts," Weller said.

Weller, author of "The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury," the writer's only authorized biography, came from Chicago this weekend to kick off "The Big Read - Norwalk 2008/Festival of Words." Sponsored by the Norwalk Public Library and held in conjunction with 127 other communities nationwide, The Big Read aims at promoting reading for pleasure and enlightenment.

Saturday's event, which also included a storytime for children at NCC, was the first of 12 that the Norwalk Library has planned through June 30. The events are being sponsored by a National Endowment for the Arts grant issued through the mayor's office.

Prior to Weller's talk, Mayor Richard Moccia issued a proclamation, praising the event and the library's goal of promoting literacy.

This year's theme was Bradbury's legendary work, "Fahrenheit 451," a tale about a futuristic, dystopian, totalitarian society that bans and burns books, which are seen as a threat because they empower people to challenge the system. In celebration of The Big Read, the library purchased 1,000 paperback copies of the book for free distribution.

"You're in for an incredible treat," said Les Kozerowitz, the city's library director, who introduced Weller. Kozerowitz also took the opportunity to underscore the importance of public libraries. He lauded Moccia for being supportive while just a couple of towns away Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch last week announced cuts in library staff.

"Mayor Finch felt that libraries were not an essential service," Kozerowitz noted.

It was a point Weller would prove wrong as he choreographed the life of Bradbury, now 88 and living in Los Angeles. A child of the Great Depression, Bradbury not only found solace in libraries and in the world of books, Weller said. He also received a free education within the library's walls, leading him to become one of the preeminent authors and thinkers of his generation.

"During the Depression he saw friends going off to college, and he couldn't afford it," Weller said. "Then he said, 'There's a college here, and it's free, the public library.' And he spent three nights a week there, reading and studying everything for nine years. He told me, 'I graduated from the public library when I was 27.'"

"The love affair with public libraries cannot be emphasized more," he added.

Bradbury, whose "Fahrenheit 451" ranks as one of the top 10 classic American novels, has penned 30 books, written for film and television and has even been an accomplished architect, all without a formal college education.

Weller, who teaches creative writing at Columbia College in Chicago, first met Bradbury eight years ago when writing a newspaper profile about the author on his 80th birthday. Many meetings followed, after which Bradbury agreed to hire Weller as his biographer. One of the great ironies about Bradbury, Weller said, is that despite his futuristic, science-fiction writings that augured the likes of virtual reality, space travel and even cell phones, Bradbury remains pretty low tech. He never drove a car nor operated a computer.

Bradbury didn't even fly on an airplane until he was 62.

"The late Arthur C. Clarke even went out and bought Bradbury a laptop computer, and he's used it as a drink coaster," Weller said.

At the same time, Weller stressed, Bradbury's imagination has had tremendous, if not prophetic influence. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, director Steven Speilberg, and even Sony engineers, Weller said, have credited Bradbury as a source of inspiration. Weller added that Bradbury was inspired to write "Fahrenheit 451" after seeing civil liberties threatened with the onset of the Cold War. "He uses stories of tomorrow as a window of today, which is what all good science-fiction writers do," Weller said.

"He's phenomenal," Stanley M. Siegel, president of the library's board of trustees and coordinator of Norwalk's Big Read, said about Weller.

"One of the reasons we picked it ("Fahrenheit 451") is because of its modern day overtones," he added.