Fahrenheit 451

by Ray Bradbury

In honor of Banned Books Week I figured I would talk about a banned book. FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury is a book about a fireman. He is not a firefighter, but a fireman. He starts fires, he doesn't put them out. This book was written in 1953 and talks about technologies that at the time were almost considered science fiction, and yet now are commonplace. This is a dystopian novel and really gets you thinking.

The story follows Guy Montag who is a fireman. It is his job to set books on fire. In this society books are considered to promote too much free thinking. There are several instances when the person collecting the books would rather die with the books. He wonders why anything, especially books, would be worth dying over.

This book has a lot of different levels to it. It can be viewed as a novel against censorship or even about how television ruins books. For anyone who loves books and reading, I highly recommend FAHRENHEIT 451 and it has stood the test of time and only gets more frightening as the similarities between the societies become even more similar. And in case you were wondering 451° F is the temperature at which paper catches fire and burns.