Fahrenheit 451

In a future where information is fed by wall-to-wall TV and books are seen as subversive, Guy Montag is a fireman whose job is to start fires rather than put them out; fires specifically intended on burning the homes of anyone found to be in possession of books. And Montag seems content enough, until he meets a young girl called Clarisse, who has moved into his neighbourhood. Brought up controversially by family that appear to shun modern ways, Clarisse has a way about her that causes Montag to start to challenge so many of the things he’d previously accepted. With his curiosity awakened he finds an interest in the very things he’s paid to destroy. Hang onto your hats and prepare for the ride of your lives. Written in a fast, urgent style I found myself propelled into Montag’s world at a breakneck pace. It’s astonishing how fast his life changes, and you need to run to keep up. Given that this book was written in 1953 it has turned out to be astonishingly prescient and so many references within it resonate with life in the twenty-first century. The characters are bought to life with well-written dialogue that gives everyone a distinct voice. And despite the futuristic setting, the picture of life in an unfamiliar world is so well crafted that at times it’s difficult to remember it’s not the way life really is. Though when you do, you can’t help but be grateful.

This has been on my TBR for a longgg time and it's only a short book so I don't know why I've waited this long! 
Title: Fahrenheit 451 
Author: Ray Bradbury
Publication Date: October 1953
Page Count: 243 Pages
Rating: 3.5*
Quote: ‘Books are only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what book says. How they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.’
Cover: 
Summary 
In an unknown year far into the future (or at least from the date this novel was written) Guy Montag is a fireman. Except not the kind of fireman we all know. Instead of putting out fires, firemen in this time start the fires, burning books which are completely banned from society.
Guy loves his job and feels that Burning books is exactly the right thing to do, until he meets a young woman name Clarisse who starts to give him ideas about what else there might be in the world, changes his thinking and makes him consider the question 'why?'
What this results in is a turn of events for Guy, he begins to doubt his wife's 'parlour family' who live inside the virtual reality walls of his living room. Makes him doubt that books are really bad and that is normal for war to break out and be over in a matter of hours. Why is the world like this? And is there anything Guy can do to change it? Put it right?

Review 
The risk with reading dystopia which was written 7 decades ago is that it won't have stood the test of time. This is not the case with Fahrenheit 451. Instead this novel continues to teach valuable lessons; not least the importance of books and reading. But also friendship, relationships and to be honest it's scary how accurate Bradbury was in his predictions of technology and VR taking over real connections and relationships.
Thought provoking and in parts terrifying a perfect read for any fan of dystopia.


Fahrenheit 451 is a book I would probably have said I'd read if you'd asked me. I could probably have told you the basic premise: a dystopian land where books are banned and 'Firemen' don't put out fires any more. I might well have read it and - rather counter to the spirit of the book - then pretty much forgotten it. And that's kind of sad because this book is one that most readers know about, a book that challenges the things we love, and yet it's also not really all that great. I hate to say it but it's a little bit forgettable. It's a short novel and a quick read and it lights the flicker of a flame of thinking about the power of books but it's all just so rushed, so fast to develop and accelerate, that a lot of the opportunities to explore deeper are missed. Montag the fireman - one of the elite who set fire to books, burn people's houses to punish them for the knowledge in their books - witnesses an old lady start a fire and kill herself because she can't be without her books, and meets a young girl who tells him there's so much more to books then just fuel for his fires. He takes a book and becomes part of the anti-establishment. In the foreword to the book, Ray Bradbury tells us he spent less than 10 dollars hiring the use of a typewriter to write Fahrenheit 451. Sadly sometimes it shows. This is just the bare bones of a story, lacking the meat to flesh it out into something more satisfying, more horrifying. It was written in the 1950s with the Nazi book burnings still fresh in people's minds but long before the wall-to-wall round the clock interactive television experiences that Bradbury envisions. For its time it must have been revolutionary. Today it just looks a bit tired and much too rushed.

The Kindle edition does not consist of text. Rather, it consists of images of each page. There is only a white background and the text cannot change size. If this is a problem for you, you'll want to find a different ebook format.

Of all books. I'm disappointed, Simon & Schuster. Of all books. How am I supposed to read a book about a dystopian future where books are forbidden, deemed a danger to society, summarized, digested, and then silenced, and not trust you to publish an accurate copy of the author's original work? I found two errors by the time I reached page 53, and only because they are glaringly obvious. Having not read the book before I have no idea how else the work has deviated from the author's source material. Page 37 - "Master Ridley," said Montag a last. A last? What is that? "A" should be "at." This one is particularly egregious: Page 53 - "School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored." Gradually gradually? Really, really? There should only be one occurrence of the word. I am disappointed, at best. It is now upon me to return this book and find an accurate replacement. The onus to find accurate text in published works should not be on the consumer.