::READERS REVIEWS::

What Did I Just Read - I don't think I'm too dense. But this book was either way over my head or I just did not appreciate it. It definitely got some good reviews, and it's one of those books that schools force upon you to read. So I gave it a shot. It was an interesting idea and a short read (thank god), but I didn't like how it ended. It kind of gave me the same feeling as Children of Men and The Giver. The Giver is one of my favorite books, so I did not come into this with a prejudice. I just thought it was a really bad book. I'm glad my high school never forced me to read it.

Fahrenheit 451*** - Wonderful story. Never gets old. I can read it over and over again, which I do. I recommend people to at least read it once, it's a classic.

Starved of greater breadth - From the standpoint of literature as a whole, it seems 451 is an important piece of work simply because of its eternal message of censorship. Ray Bradbury was a science fiction writer but managed to elevate this novel to the most important rungs of the literary community, something not many SF authors do. There's a reason for that vacuum- typically SF writing is dry, much like 451. It's a good novel, but I don't think it added much to realm of science fiction as it did to the literary community.

Science fiction novels from the 50s and 60s have a distinct feel and flow to them and Fahrenheit 451 is no exception. Like many of the other novels of the era, 451 was based on a short story written and was later lengthened to a novel. The basis is simple: books are illegal and must be burnt. That makes a tidy short story. But stretching a simple idea like that into a full length novel loses an ethereal something (the spirit? the essence? the soul?) from its inception. This occurs in many Poul Anderson novels, as well as John Brunner, James Blish and others from the same era.

That ethereal something lost changes the feel and flow of a normally placid plot... much like in 451 where the onset of the protagonist's change of heart is sudden and undeveloped. The direction of change is clear and predictable. Perhaps 451 is the waving flag of examples of censorship, but its undeveloped underpinnings starve it of greater breadth.

Good Read - I have read this book more than once, when I first read it I had to for school but really enjoyed it. I read it again and even watched the movie, the book is way better. Very good message for those that think books are bad and useless. Books remind us of the past and can help us in our day to day lives.

Went in with high hopes, came out disappointed. - I feel almost guilty giving this book a review like this, it is hailed as a classic and usually when I read books that are considered classics I can see the many strong qualities that put them on the 'classic' pedestal. But I must be honest, I'm not going to make this book sound better then I thought it was simply because it is considered a classic. The only redeeming quality this book really has is the overall idea and like many reviewers have already pointed out - the idea is good, the execution of said idea is quite lacking.

This story follows Guy Montag, a fireman. Unlike the firemen of today, these firemen burn books rather than put out fires. The world has become a dystopian society that favors pleasure over reality. We almost have a 'stepford-society' of sorts. Critical thinking is said to create sadness and conflict so something must be done about it. The books must be burned.

In Fahrenheit 451 Montag has an epiphany after talking with his light-hearted neighbor Clarisse. Clarisse represents the very thing this society is trying to rid. Guy Montags wife represents the opposite. You can already see the conflict here, so what is Guy to do?

I'll admit the first 40 pages or so really had me going. The story was unique and the message was interesting. I did notice right away that Bradbury likes to be overly-poetic in some parts, and a straight-shooter in others. His writing is a little inconsistent but I was able to look past that. At first I really hated Montags wife (a good thing, when books conjure up these types of feelings then they are doing their job) and I really felt empathetic towards Guy. The problem is that this book really started becoming silly. The characters really become forced and the plot as a whole takes an eye-rolling turn for the worst. The ending is one of the most forced endings I've ever read. This book could have been written a million different ways and Bradbury chose a really silly path. I had to force myself to finish the book and I started to lose my feelings towards the main characters, I just started to not care anymore. It's almost as if Bradbury had a good idea for a short-story one day and forced it into a novel.

In the end I would give this book a 2.5/5. There are some interesting ideas and some of the writing is pretty good, though it is inconsistent. Unfortunately I can't give half-stars so it's either a 2 or a 3. Tough choice but ultimately this book was more on the disappointing end of the spectrum for me.

A dystopian cautionary tale - Fahrenheit 451 is one of the most famous works of science fiction, and with "Brave New World" and "1984" represents one of the most memorable and haunting dystopias. In a future world, books are banned and firemen actually set fires instead of extinguishing them. The state exercises a form of social control through controlling what sort of information people have access to. It turns out that not all books are banned, only those that we would today consider "great works" - Plato, Shakespeare, The Bible, Darwin, etc. For me one of the biggest surprises about Fahrenheit 451 was the rationale that was offered for the burning of those books. In a nutshell, they offended politically correct sensibilities and the authorities felt that they would undermine the social cohesion. This expunging of the classics from the culture has an uncanny resonance with the attempts over past few decades to expunge them from the undergraduate liberal arts curriculum. And rationale is also similar: these books are not "diverse" enough and may offend the sensibilities of an ever-increasing list of "minorities." It is hard not to wonder if a milder, softer version of dystopian future that Bradbury was worried about in the early 1950s has not in fact arrived.

Bradbury's writing and ideas are somewhere between those of George Orwell and Philip K. Dick. His style is very engaging, and even poetic. His writing is at its best when one of his characters engages in a prolonged monolog. However, the plot development could use some improvement. There is very little in terms of transition from one scene to the next, and most scenes are overly compressed. It is very hard to follow the plot developments at times. Nonetheless, Bradbury is a wonderful stylist and unlike much of science fiction this book is a pleasure to read on a purely literally level as well as for its sweeping ideas.

As a last note, I found it incredibly ironic that I read this book on Kindle. Based on this alone I am fairly optimistic that reading and great books will not only survive but in fact thrive well into the 21st century.

Classics are never as great to revisit - It's a disturbingly prophetic reading and radical idea for its day and age. But the concept is old hat in this day where it's a regular affair. It's simply no longer the system shock it once was. I personally find the characterization a bit thin, but that was arguably the point in this sterile society. It's a classic for a good reason, but I don't know if I find the read entertaining these days.

Review of Farenheit 451 -> Highschooler - Obviously, most can tell if a book is good or not. This book hits you with an immediate blast of curiosity. By the time that you have finished part 1 of the book, you simply must go on and find out the truth about so many things. Is she really dead? What's going to happen next? Its all included in this book. I suggest that you go and pick this book up just for the enjoyment. I am not an avid reader nor do I enjoy reading, but with this book, I was forced to make an exception. Pick it up, and enjoy!

A good sciene fiction novel on human nature - This book does a fine job at creating a dysfunctional, brainwashed American society of the future completely controlled by a dictator-like government. The story is easy to follow and has the moral of never lossing hope when everything around you feels lost. The book doesn't have too much deep meaning behind it, which means it basically reads out how it reads out. Ray Bradbury is a good author of these types, and provides interesting scenarios for these characters.

One of the best books ever written in my opinion - I read this book for the first time when I was probably 13 and I have loved it every since. It truly is an amazing book and one you can never forget. Randomly during a regular conversation even 10 years after reading this book I find myself connecting coversations to things in the book. A book everyone should read. I can't wait to have my daughter read it in a few years!

Fahrenheit 451 - I read this book as a teenager, and I wanted my students to read it as well. Although I loved it, I did not get the same reaction as when they saw the video. However they did think the video was cheesy... :D

Great Purchase - I am really satisfied with my purchase. Everything went great. I`ll recommend it to others.

Reading with Tequila - Fahrenheit 451 is set in a dystopian society that any book-lover would loathe. Firemen don't put out fires, they start them. They burn books, all books, for the safety of society. Guy is a fireman who is content with the world around him, until he starts reading a contraband books.

Censorship, freedom of speech and the idea that knowledge is dangerous are at the forefront of this novel. Even today, people are still banning books and trying to stop certain ideas from infecting the minds of the populace. The books relevance has clearly stood the test of time, but perhaps that's more a problem with society than praise for this book.

While the premise is scary and all too possible, the writing itself is dull. Fahrenheit 451 is a short book full of description. In this case, being overly descriptive isn't a good thing. The wording is choppy and the only time you can really get into the flow of the book is when Bradbury goes on a rambling tangent.

The concept is sure to outrage and book-lovers will easily become enthralled with Guy as he embraces the knowledge and power books provide. Fahrenheit 451 is a good book, but it is written in a way that aggravating and distracting. I don't think it deserves the gushing praise that's heaped upon it.

Simply Amazing - It's hard to think of what to write in a review for your favorite novel, but I will certainly try. Fahrenheit 451 is frightening in the fact that the events laid out are plausible; it's completely accessible to a variety of readers. It has everything that a dystopic novel needs, even if the future setting is a bit vague. Bradbury's writing has stood the test of time and there's no doubt that high schoolers will still be studying this novel in another 50 years.

Dystopian Masterpiece - What else can be said about Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451? Nothing, but I'll try. It is an amazing book, with an amazing plot, an amazing story, and it must be read by anyone who enjoys dystopian themes. The world that Ray Bradbury envisions in Fahrenheit 451 is as close to realistic horror as it can get for any thinking individual - not even Stephen King could create anything as truly horrific.

A story that only gets better with age - The narration is more cerebral than story-driven even though Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is one engaging dystopian thriller. What continually surprises me, as well as countless other reviewers, is how prophetic the novel has become. Predicting the future, even only for the sake of story, has a tendency to unravel a novel's relevancy if enough years pass since the original publication. Even that's putting it softly. A novel about the future will cease to matter UNLESS, as in the case of Fahrenheit 451, the story ages in a state of becoming mostly true.

My favorite bit of wisdom came from the author's afterward of the particular edition I was reading. To summarize, he commented that people of all ages and all creeds have the potential and often do engage in the act of book burning without ever lighting a single match.

A Timeless, Thought Provoking Story - I first read this book in high school and loved it. Since then, I've read it again and still love it. Fahrenhiet 451 addresses the serious issues of censorship and how a controlled society of this sort could limit the well being of society as a whole. In this frightening world Ray Bradbury created, books are not allowed and people are encouraged to escape into fantasy television shows that encourage shallow thinking. Guy Montag, a fireman who burns books, begins to question his reality and sets out on a journey in pursuit of freedom and truth. The novel is highly thought provoking because it encourages its readers to think about societal rules and to question the structural foundations of the group mentality. It was also an exciting read.

Great Book - My son read this book. He is in his 4th year of college. He loves science fiction books since he was little. This was the real deal! Very enjoyable. We included this book in our summer reading list of books as we recently visited the book store, a summer tradition, to gather up all of our pics for our summer reading list. This includes books for myself, my husband, kids and nieces and nephews. We ordered some books from Amazon as well. We also get some books as birthday presents for others so they can join in on our discussions. We have a mini book club where we discuss our books as we all read along. The kids have found a wonderful book called, Smitty's Cave Adventures. They all love thrilling action-adventure books and this one is full of mystery and intrigue! From a parental point of view, Smitty's Cave Adventures also has a good moral overtone. Even the girls wanted to read this book and they all concluded that this is their favorite book so far! Smitty's Cave Adventures

Classic...thought provoking ideas, middling execution - Honestly? It's not that great. I'm giving it four stars because it must have had some incredible super-meta-meaning back in the 1950's. I hate to dock it points due to poor translation to modern times.

I read Farenheit 451 as a student, back in the 1970's. Afte all these years, I didn't remember the book too well, but I did remember thinking it was incredibly deep and insightful. I picked it up a few weeks ago, looking to re-engage with a classic. I found it interesting, but tedious. Bordering on deep, but not deep. Within striking distance of saying something important, without actually saying something important.

There's no doubt that Bradbury was a visionary who saw a lot of things coming before they actually came. That said, he nearly missed the point of it all. He saw a future of coerced conformity, in which people would be compelled to give up their books. The true insight would've been that in a bleak future, people would voluntarily give up their freedoms. They wouldn't need firemen to burn books, because they'd voluntarily participate in their own enslavement. The incentive would be, simply, comfort. There are other writers, both fiction and non-fiction, who came a lot closer to this realization, that people would be more than happy to trade freedom for comfort and would therefore not need to be coerced. They'd just need an IV filled with state benefits and handouts, in return for which they'd acquiesce in their own serfdom.

The book is both intriguingly written and poorly written. It is kind of an impressionistic book, with awkward sentences that work much better after a few glasses of wine or other substance of choice.

It deserves the four stars, simply for being a famous classic. Nevertheless, I was left wondering whether this book is truly a classic or just a book that was a classic when we were all reading it in the 70's, yet lacking in the true depth of insight that a real classic requires. The distopia that Bradbury describes had a few brief trial runs in the 20th century, but is not a 21st century archetype.

Disturbingly familiar... - Fahrenheit 451 is a short and simple book that deals with some incredibly complex issues. Most people mistakenly believe that Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit about censorship. Although that shoe does fit this story, Bradbury actually wrote this book to highlight the possible consequences that our society may have to face if the trend of television and similar forms of entertainment began to overtake more imaginative forms of entertainment such as books. This theme seems even more relevent today than it would have when it was written in 1953. The fictional world of the future that Bradbury created is a depressing and generic place where people have forgotten how to think for themselves and are completely unable to form true bonds of family and friendship. The books that are burned by the firemen are against the law but the story points out very obviously that these laws began as a result of the citizens' own actions. Books were burned if any one group found them offensive so that everyone would be happy. Eventually, all books were considered offensive to someone and the government stepped in to take care of the problem of books once and for all. Unfortunately, this did nothing to REALLY fix the problem. It merely dumbed down society until people were unable to realize their true feelings. Suicide and murder is a normal and acceptable occurance. Everything is impersonal and generic as protagonist Guy Montag goes from "content" fireman to book-loving fugitive in the matter of a couple hundred pages.
As a book lover, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Bradbury writes in a natural voice and it is extremely obvious that he himself if a great lover of books. It is a refreshing read while still disturbing the reader with it's eerie depictions of where we could be headed as a society.

later delivery than usual - I was in a hurry to get this book for a class project for my daughter. Ordered it and waited and waited for its arrival. Much longer shipping time than other books I had ordered on internet... I checked the book out of the library and read it while waiting.

My third favorite book - I decided to give this classic book a chance. Once I read page 1, I was sucked inside of the story. The idea of a world where books are burned and people would rather talk to their "families" on the televisions was just like modern day (the phone to your ear for example).

This is my third book (first two being Alice in Wonderland and the manga Godchild).

Timeless - I just finished reading this book for the third time and it simply gets better with age, like a vintage wine. How can we picture a world where there are no books, particularly novels?

Like most of us on Amazon, I'm a voracious reader and have been since I was in elementary school. Books transport us to another world and allow us to have insight into lives, situations other countries that we may never otherwise experience. Good books pose tough questions about ethics, coping with adversity, and dealing with loss, sorrow or facing hard choices -- for example, Sophie's Choice, when she had to choose between which one of her children she would save from the Nazis.

When I was 19 and I first read this book, I thought it was just about banning books. I didn't fully comprehend the depth of mind control that would be involved in restricting information, and consequently creating a reality that is so sanitized that it bears no resemblance to real life. No wonder people were glued to the flatscreen TVs and hooked on mood altering substances to get through the day.

As always, Ray Bradbury does a fantastic job of making us think long and hard after we put this book down. The video version is also quite good, but I sometimes had trouble making out people's accents, and it was created in the days before subtitles were available. Altogether, a terrific read that bears rereading over the decades.

Quick shipping - great condition - The book arrived very quickly and was in great condition. Not a whole lot to say about a book but happy with everything!

"I hate a Roman named Status Quo!" - This book is all about one man's struggle against the status quo- even more frightening for him because he lives in a world where firemen are not the rescuers but the fire starters. They rush to houses not to put out fires but to burn them, and only those that hold the most heinous crimes against the state- books.

Guy Montag did his duty as a fireman till one day a girl- a free thinker- held a dandelion under his chin and woke him up.

His world turned upside down he made a stand and then had to run for his life- watched all the while by inhabitants of the city glued to their wall tv sets, numbed and dumbed down by the very thing that holds them enthralled.

Yet, Montag makes his escape, becoming more important than he ever could have realized while his world disintegrates around him- literally.

I read Fahrenheit 451 ages ago and it was fun to revisit it with older eyes. I thought I remembered this as a dystopian rant against state run government- perhaps exacerbated by a documentary borrowing the titled not long ago- but really its not.

This little tale is all about the dumbing down of the human soul, when we give up reading and communicating on a deeper level to reality shows, texting and abridged stories.

I had also forgotten how much I love Bradbury's use of cadence, similes and how spare his writing feels- even though it's not. Very emotive.

It makes me sad that kids may miss this because they can't be bothered to sit down and read book over the media shouting such old fashioned behavior down. "Like butterflies puzzled by Autumn" they will one day wake up and not understand.

It makes me sad indeed.

"I hate a Roman named Status Quo!" - This book is all about one man's struggle against the status quo- even more frightening for him because he lives in a world where firemen are not the rescuers but the fire starters. They rush to houses not to put out fires but to burn them, and only those that hold the most heinous crimes against the state- books.

Guy Montag did his duty as a fireman till one day a girl- a free thinker- held a dandelion under his chin and woke him up.

His world turned upside down he made a stand and then had to run for his life- watched all the while by inhabitants of the city glued to their wall tv sets, numbed and dumbed down by the very thing that holds them enthralled.

Yet, Montag makes his escape, becoming more important than he ever could have realized while his world disintegrates around him- literally.

I read Fahrenheit 451 ages ago and it was fun to revisit it with older eyes. I thought I remembered this as a dystopian rant against state run government- perhaps exacerbated by a documentary borrowing the titled not long ago- but really its not.

This little tale is all about the dumbing down of the human soul, when we give up reading and communicating on a deeper level to reality shows, texting and abridged stories. (yeah, yeah, texting and reality shows weren't around when Bradbury wrote the book- but then, how prophetic is THAT, because that's exactly eventual outcome he saw coming! Eerily prophetic, really.)

I had also forgotten how much I love Bradbury's use of cadence, similes and how spare his writing feels- even though it's not. Very emotive.

It makes me sad that kids may miss this because they can't be bothered to sit down and read book over the media shouting such old fashioned behavior down. "Like butterflies puzzled by Autumn" they will one day wake up and not understand.

It makes me sad indeed.

Brilliant, depressing, electrifying, profound!! - Ray Bradbury's books make for immediate, mesmerizing, entirely compulsive reading. His prose is electrifying in its use of poetic metaphor and dramatic syntax. The reader is instantly plunged into an alien culture, or a terrifying future, and is not really released even after the last page is turned.

I had been postponing reading this novel for years. I am, after all, a confirmed bibliophile. Reading a novel with a plot involving the burning of books would, I kept telling myself, be too traumatic for me.

I finally decided to wade in.

Need I say that I only put the book down when I absolutely had to, when reality intruded? The novel carried me along on its relentless wave of narrative. Of course, I tried not to picture the books burning as I read, but Bradbury wouldn't let me. Not when he was describing them as living creatures, dying, their pigeon wings flapping.... The fact that I managed to endure this at all is a real tribute to the greatness of his writing.

The characters are indelibly imprinted on my brain. The most compelling, of course, is the protagonist, Montag. Equally compelling are Faber, who is obviously Montag's alter ego, and the numinous Clarisse. She is the one who first awakens Montag to the futility of denying his own soul, the stirrings of thought and penetrating questions that reading invariably arouses. The most tragic character is Beatty, who struggles hard against his love of books, in his work as chief fireman. This struggle culminates in a final, ironic conflagration. Montag's wife, Mildred, is to be pitied, since she is unable to acknowledge her emptiness, her consuming loneliness. She pushes away the power and beauty to be found in books. She refuses to come out of denial, preferring `the family', a banal cast of characters she endlessly watches on the living room `wall-to-wall TV', in order to anesthetize the deepest longings of her soul.

As I read, I became aware of a deeper sense of discomfort, underneath that elicited by the burning of books. Due to my own life experiences, I, along with this disturbed society, had been unconsciously longing for a world in which no one would ever get his or her feelings hurt - a world where everyone's rights would be respected, especially those of minorities.

Bradbury gave me a sobering look at such a world, and it was absolutely terrifying. It was "American Idol" gone wild, a world in which people no longer thought, felt, or even communicated on a soul level with other human beings. Instead, they spent all their time being `happy', through mindless, ongoing entertainment.

I realized that I didn't want to live in such a world; it would mean the total annihilation of what makes us most deeply human - the ability to dream, to wonder, to ponder the deep truths of life.

Books and the questions they raise are incompatible with living in a world where nobody would offend anyone else. Books disturb, probe, anger and challenge. Books are flawed at times, due to their authors' all-too-human penchant for furthering their own pet theories, however twisted they might seem to a reader. Books can make us squirm, for they can force us to face the unwanted realities we try to bury.

There is still a part of me that thinks that books such as "Mein Kampf" should be burned, or at least, allowed to expire by going, and staying, out of print. The Marquis de Sade also comes to mind as an author of books with a markedly offensive subject matter. Then there's Anais Nin. One of her books chronicles the incestuous relationship she had with her father...

The problem is, where do you draw the line? Who decides which books merit extinction?

I don't have a final, satisfactory answer.

And so I am left feeling restless and slightly depressed, although I'm glad to have read the book, nevertheless. It has caused me to ponder what I really and truly believe regarding the banning of books, and their potentially harmful influences.

Yet another uncomfortable element of the plot is Montag's desperate, evil act toward the end of the novel. I suppose it is inevitable, however. It is indeed immoral, but then, so is the entire, nihilistic society he is a part of. It is the act of a man who has turned on a symbol of that society, and so, turned on himself, in a sense, in order to be reborn as a new man, a man who thinks and feels, even if doing so causes him some measure of unhappiness. This act could, itself, be considered a harmful influence on a reader, since Montag evades punishment. Yet, as an act of rebellion, of a misplaced sort of justice, it is totally fitting. Therein lies "the treason of the artist", as Ursula K. LeGuin puts it. For the artist makes meaning out of pain, suffering, and tragedy. This is also part of the value to be found in books.

The symbol of rebirth is ubiquitous in the novel. At one point, the myth of the Phoenix is mentioned. Ironically, civilization is being reborn out of the very fire it has used to destroy the very objects that had given it meaning - books.

By the end of the novel, groups of people have quietly begun the reconstruction, the return to reading. It is a movement that is slowly gathering momentum. Civilization, suggests Bradbury, as Miller's "Canticle for Leibowitz" was to do years later, is constantly rising from the ashes of every Dark Age in order to reinvent itself.

So I know that I will be re-reading this book sometime in the near future, as I intend to do with Miller's. Both are books that apparently dwell on despair, only to end with a feeling of hope.

Bradbury has once again sparked my imagination and tickled my intellect. He also refuses to let me forget his incredible take on a future that may or may not turn out to become all too real.

There must be something in books - Books are dangerous. They're full of ideas that make people think about the world, feel passion, and perhaps act out. That's not good for society; it causes conflict, uprising, and interference with the status quo. People who read and think scare people who don't, so most citizens have happily given up the right to decide what to think about and now let the government fill their brains with constant loud mindless entertainment. This managed input has equalized society; nobody feels inferior to anyone else and there's no conflict anymore. Dull minds, constant entertainment, and conformity make society run smoothly.

Guy Montag works as a fireman. He burns books at night while his wife sits in her parlor and listens to inane media shows at high volume. But Clarice, the teenager next door, is different. Her family sits around and talks. They discuss things and they laugh with each other. Guy wonders what they talk about as he watches his wife talk to the strangers on TV and pop sleeping pills...

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 presents a possible frightening future in which intellectual pursuits and nonconformity are deemed dangerous and subversive. It's been more than half a century since Fahrenheit 451 was published and we've seen censorship laws actually become looser over the years and the advent of the internet has brought on the current "information age." But that doesn't make Fahrenheit 451 irrelevant because it's about much more than literary censorship. It's about freedom of speech and individual rights. It's about thinking for ourselves and what might happen if we let the government tell us what we can see, hear, or own.

Fahrenheit 451 resonates with me on so many levels. First of all, it's just superbly written. I love Bradbury's intense style which translates especially well on Blackstone Audio's version read by Christopher Hurt (sample). Here he describes the show that Mrs Montag watches all day:

A great thunderstorm of sound gushed from the walls. Music bombarded him at such an immense volume that his bones were almost shaken from their tendons; he felt his jaw vibrate, his eyes wobble in his head. He was a victim of concussion. When it was all over he felt like a man who had been thrown from a cliff, whirled in a centrifuge and spat out over a waterfall that fell and fell into emptiness and emptiness and never -- quite -- touched -- bottom -- never -- never -- quite -- no not quite -- touched -- bottom ... and you fell so fast you didn't touch the sides either... never... quite... touched... anything.

The thunder faded. The music died.

"There," said Mildred. And it was indeed remarkable. Something had happened. Even though the people in the walls of the room had barely moved, and nothing had really been settled, you had the impression that someone had turned on a washing-machine or sucked you up in a gigantic vacuum. You drowned in music and pure cacophony. He came out of the room sweating and on the point of collapse. Behind him, Mildred sat in her chair and the voices went on again...

Second, I share Bradbury's ardent passion for knowledge and learning. The thought of lost information, burned books, mindless entertainment, meaningless small-talk, conformity, and intellectual malaise makes my stomach twist. I don't believe that we're in danger of the anti-intellectualism that Bradbury posits, but still his ideas get me riled up.

Third, I'll admit that I'm a rebel at heart. While I recognize that obeying laws and paying taxes are a necessary part of living in a well-functioning society, I feel mostly distrustful and suspicious when the government increases taxes, takes over more functions in society, tells us what to believe, and tries to revoke constitutional freedoms. In this context, Bradbury's possible future doesn't seem so impossible anymore.

I'm pleased that my school district assigns Fahrenheit 451 in its middle-school curriculum, though I find it a bit ironic that some publishers have edited the language to make it more "suitable" for teenagers.