Fahrenheit 451

For me this was a short easy-to-read book about an upside down world where a firefighter's job is not to put out fires but instead burn books in case they contained anything which would upset the societal equilibrium. The giveaway is in the title which refers to the temperature at which paper will spontaneously combust.

Of course, today, it will be pointless for anyone to try to suppress knowledge by burning books, because we have the internet. But I heed Bradbury’s warning of a superficial society in which everything is served up.

When governments set books on fire, either through banning them or literally dumping them into burning piles, the world has reached a dark place. I like that this book is timeless. It doesn’t just show the cost of censorship and mass control of the populace by preventing knowledge transmission–I really respect how it shows that this is a tried-and-true method of control that has been used since the beginning of human civilization, not just in modern times.

What people term “dystopian” are simply books that make you look at society’s shadow, but in a way that is digestible. I think… show more.

As a psychiatrist-novelist, I thought it would be interesting to re-read a book I had first read as a teenager -now, to look at it from a writerly point of view, and as an adult. The story remains original and well-told., This time, though, I paid more attention to the social context Bradbury was aiming to show, something that barely caught my attention the first time round. Interesting: a sci-fi classic with a message to think about now as much as when it was written.

Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which books burn, the temperature in which knowledge and ideas go up in flames.

The story follows Guy Montag, a fireman who begins to question the status quo and discovers the profound beauty in different ideas, narratives, and lessons contained within books. Ray Bradbury’s novel serves as a poignant cautionary tale of how government control can strip us of our power and understanding.

With book bans spreading across the country and attacks on various educational institutions, this is an essential read for anyone who values the written word and its transformative power to help… show more.

Many of us read this book in high school. I read it this year because I'd been given a copy. I was honestly amazed. Written in 1953, it holds up marvelously well. There are, of course, some dated references, but I came away astonished by Bradbury's ability to anticipate the future, not just concerning devices such as wall-sized TV screens, but in his depiction of a culture fixated on entertainment. It's especially relevant to our iPhone generation. And no one writes like Ray Bradbury. It's a short, easy read, though the 60th anniversary edition has a number of extra articles… show more.

As a librarian, I loved how books were deemed a threat in this work. Through fear-mongering and keeping people distracted by technology, people are imprisoned by ignorance without access to books. I particularly enjoyed the symbolism in the robotic murder dog—it can hunt down anyone and can find you anywhere.

Living under that level of technological threat searches for what it means to be human that much harder—but vital. But my favorite idea is that the knowledge we carry collectively has the power to save our humanity.

I read this book relatively recently, not at school or when I was in my twenties, but when I was in my late thirties. I had heard of the novel, and the concept of burning books was all-too familiar as I studied a module on Holocaust literature at university. However, the premise of Ray Bradbury’s novel, written in 1953, was so simple yet so powerful.

It echoes with our own reality today, as although books are not being burned, we are seeing the art of writing itself being "burned" or minimized by tools such as AI or social media. The… show more.

I love this book because it is well-written, prescient, and has withstood the test of time!

This book contains many facets of wisdom that reveal themselves to readers of any age. It is a good story and, at its core, a message that has gone on haunting me, that is, the joy and importance of reading. 

In the dystopian future that Bradbury creates, technology has eliminated the need for books.

We are not smarter in this future without history or literature, in fact, we are dumber, relying on meaningless entertainment to fill the intellectual void created by the written word’s eradication. Many successful science fiction authors are masters of the craft of writing, but Bradbury is on another level.

His stark vision of the future is propelled by ordinary characters living in extraordinary times, with each setting painted with beautiful prose that is both prophetic and thought provoking. The Dewey Decimal System has no hold on… show more.

Probably the most well-known books of classic sci-fi and a true masterpiece by Bradbury. Original, but with undertones of the same human traits of controlling the population, squashing individual thinking, and the escapism and magic of imagination through the pages of books.

Again, love for another human, and the excitement of babbling in forbidden pastimes are two of the themes of this book, as well as rising above the evil big brother.