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Jul 15, 2011

She-Who-Reads rated it:

Somehow, I have gotten through life as an English major, book geek, and a science-fiction nerd without ever having read this book. I vaguely remember picking it up in high-school and not getting very far with it. It was an interesting premise, but far too depressing for my tastes at the time.

Fast-forward 15 years later. I just bought a copy the other day to register at BookCrossing for their Banned Books Month release challenge. The ALA celebrates Banned Books Week in September, so o More...

10 comments like (122 people liked it)

Aug 25, 2011

Keely rated it:

Farenheit 451 has been analyzed and reinterpreted by every successive generation to change its meaning. This is chiefly because the book is full of assumptions and vague symbolism which can be taken many ways, and rarely does anyone come away from the book with the conclusion the author intended, which would suggest that it is a failed attempt.

Right from the title, we can see the book was rushed and inaccurate, since contemporary sources suggest paper combusts at 450 degrees Celsius, More...

65 comments like (50 people liked it)

Jan 27, 2011

notgettingenough rated it:

One day Ray Bradbury received a letter from a student who told him that the edition of his book they were studying that term had 75 acts of censorship in it. Things the publishers thought best to remove.

It prompted this from the author, the coda to a subsequent edition:

“About two years ago, a letter arrived from a solemn young Vassar lady telling me how much she enjoyed reading my experiment in space mythology, The Martian Chronicles.

But, she added, woul

More...

13 comments like (45 people liked it)

Aug 02, 2008

Chris rated it:

It’s time to do it, isn’t it? You know it is. We’ve all done it before, no sense in resisting the temptation to do it yet again. The sun has set, the skies have turned a sensational shade of indigo, the interior lighting is seductively dimmed. The house is otherwise empty, and not expecting additional occupancy any time soon. The blinds are down, curtains drawn tightly. The stereo is playing softly; isn’t that your favorite slow-jam? Of course it is.

Thwart all possible inte More...

5 comments like (31 people liked it)

Aug 23, 2011

Lou rated it:

Good writing from a very skilled writer Bradbury, the plot and characters all done well. He writes about an era where firemen create fires to burn books, one fireman decides to see what all the fuss is about and one day keeps one book for himself. This sets himself on a deadly path of self-discovery that turns him into the hunted. His life turns upside down, eventually he meets a group of people who have memorized and preserved books to memory, this society wanted to keep books of the past More...

6 comments like (11 people liked it)

Oct 18, 2009

karen rated it:

so i decided that this is the summer i read all the books i "should" have read by now- all the classics i have not gotten around to. this was, oddly, sparked by that asshole that said to alyssa "this is why small bookstores are better - no one in big bookstores knows anything about books". which is, of course, inaccurate and ridiculous - poor alyssa is a nineteen year old girl who has not read any philip roth, and wasnt able to recommend a title to the (fifty year old) man bu More...

37 comments like (40 people liked it)

Jul 14, 2008

Brian rated it:

Believe me, I'm not the kind of guy who gushes over classics simply by virtue of the fact that they are classics, but this one was worth all the legend that it carries with it. I'm glad I never had to read this book in highschool. First of all, we would have ruined this truly awesome story by overanalyzing every mundane literary aspect, detail and device. Second, the story is SO much more profound in the year 2008 at the age of 30 than it could have been at 17 in 1995.

I always t More...

5 comments like (41 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Tara rated it:

one of my top 5 favorites of all time.

Favorite Quotes

Have you ever watched the jet cars race on the boulevard?...I sometimes think drivers don’t know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them slowly...If you showed a driver a green blur, Oh yes! He'd say, that’s grass! A pink blur! That’s a rose garden! White blurs are houses. Brown blurs are cows.

There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house More...

0 comments like (20 people liked it)

Apr 26, 2008

Alison rated it:

Guy Montag, the book-burning fireman from Farenheit 451 is a dystopian Jerry Maguire of sorts. After years of burning books and living with an overly-medicated wife in a society that focuses on distraction, entertainment, and "happiness", he doesn't write a mission statement...he decides to start reading banned books on his search for something *real*.

Bradbury claims that it's not about censorship here. Rather, it's about a society that asks "how" over "why More...

7 comments like (16 people liked it)

Mar 10, 2008

Michael rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2008

Laura rated it:

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2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2007

Tyler rated it:

Few appreciate irony as much as I do, so understand that I understand this review. The message of this book is decent: knowledge should not be censored. However, the rest of the book is utter shit. I found myself actually screaming at several points as Bradbury spent minutes and dozens of metaphors and allusions referring to one insignificant detail of the plot. It is too damn flowery to be understandable by anyone! In other words, an English teacher's dream. In addition, the story was about the More...

22 comments like (41 people liked it)

Oct 14, 2007

Lindsay rated it:

Lindsay Jones

Ms.Kuhn

October 7,2007

Hour 6

Interview with Guy Montag

1. How do you feel about your job as a fireman?

Im very confused about the obligations of a fireman. It feels as though helping people is not my job anymore. The only thing this city seems to worry about is the situation dealing with books and literature. Our job know is to burn any type of writing found,and I do not believe in what we are More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jul 09, 2007

Jason rated it:

Ray Bradbury has never sat comfortably in the world of literature, nor with me; considered a "genre writer" by some and meant as an insult, a "serious writer" by others and meant as a compliment, it seems that I am always going back and forth about his merits in my head too, especially the farther away we get from many of the books' original publication dates. That said, how can you not love Fahrenheit 451, a virtual blueprint for the Cautionary Science Fiction Tale with Mode More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

May 01, 2010

Annalisa rated it:

I'm always amazed when speculative fiction stands the test of time. In 1953, Bradbury created a world where:
-people are so obsessed with TV that socializing is getting together and watching your favorite show; it's all anyone talks about anymore (Bachelor parties anyone?)
-characters on shows are your family, more real to you than your own family (I think this mentality started with Friends)
-people watch reality shows and police chases like a drug
-kids are so desensitized More...

3 comments like (14 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

Kerri rated it:

I heard that this was a great book, and I really wanted to like it. The title and the quips on the back cover caught my interest. Guy Montag is a fireman, but the job is flipped. Instead of putting out fires, he is creating them, and he likes it a lot. The first sentence, "It was a pleasure to burn", and the following description after, had me convinced that I would enjoy the book. Not only that, New York Times professes that the book is "frightening in its implications". Wit More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 22, 2007

Sithara rated it:

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury has created a world that chillingly seems to reflect our present and near future. In this upside down dystopia, firemen burn books, women congregate with their fake wall (television) families, youth engage in high speed car chases, killing themselves and others, and products are promoted on 200 ft billboards, and hawked by Jesus Christ. In this world where supposedly everyone has everything one wants, no one is truly happy, no one loves anyone, and unhappy people More...

1 comment like (9 people liked it)

Sep 24, 2011

Paris rated it:

Guy Montag is a character I can relate to in a world where all my nightmares are realized. This is a powerful prophetic tale that can be easily read in one night. There is no reason not to pick this up and digest it. Some of the things in this novel don't seem so unnatural, but we must remember that when Bradbury wrote it wall-sized TV's and recklessly fast and careless teenagers weren't so commonplace. Maybe we haven't resorted to burning books, but perhaps that isn't how we lose them. Maybe we More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 08, 2009

Arturo rated it:

Dejé de leer porque leer me alejó de las personas que amo. Me deshice de todos mis libros porque ellos me robaron mucho tiempo al lado de las personas más valiosas. Dejé de leer, porque a medida que veía escenarios, personas, comportamientos, atmósferas, relaciones, etcétera; impresas en las páginas de los libros, comencé a tomarlas como alternativas de vida, como comportamientos que debieran ser socialmente aceptados o asimilados a la vida cotidiana, es decir: perdí la noción de diferenciar ent More...

5 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 29, 2011

Henry rated it:

Guy Montag is your typical modern fireman , burning books for a living.None of that old -fashioned putting out fires, he and a hose full of kerosene and just a little old match, does the trick. Sets books ablazing,it's more fun too!Besides no one reads anymore.Father was a fireman, so was his grandfather.Montag didn't really have a choice.Coming back from a good nights work, the firesetter discovers his wife took too many sleeping pills.An accident she later says.After getting her stomach pump More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 18, 2011

J.N. rated it:

I was excited to read this book because it was a book about book burnings/banning and made the banned books list itself--irony right there. When I first started reading, I wasn't sure I would like it very much because Bradbury's writing style is harder to read (then again, this book was written in the 1950s) but he does have a very poetic way with metaphors and descriptions.

I found that the more I read, the more I was able to understand even if I didn't get it as I started reading. Wha More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

May 13, 2010

Mounica rated it:

"You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can't have our minorities upset and stirred. Ask yourself, What do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn't that right? .... Well, aren't they? Don't we keep them moving, don't we give them fun? That's all we live for, isn't it? .... Colored people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn it."

That is exactly the firemen's job in t More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Kelly rated it:

Personally I have beef with Bradbury as a human being. In fact, I think he's a raging ass. But personal feelings aside, Fahrenheit 451 is a surprisingly relevant book. Although Bradbury's ascertation that the novel is not really about censorship is absurd particularly after one reads his "Coda" at the end of my 1991 Ballantine Books edition of the novel where he rails against those trying to "gut" his writing by making it more digestible for the masses. In it he writes: More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 13, 2011

Oria rated it:

I believe magic still exists in the world and it lives in the books. There is something special about being in a library or a bookstore, with so many stories around, waiting to be read, to be rescued from the shelves and taken home.

It strikes me how very like Zafon's "Cemetery of Forgotten Books" (a concept I’ve read about in two of his novels, Angel’s Game and The Shadow of The Wind) the whole process of choosing a book is. You go into a bookstore and all the books on the More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 04, 2011

Ben rated it:

Every science fiction fanatic, especially one as young as myself, has a list of classic science fiction books that he or she has yet to read. One's definition of classic can vary; it's not the content of the list that matters but its existence as a personal measure of our "SF street cred." I have read Dune and Starship Troopers, and plenty of Asimov pre-Goodreads. Until now, however, Fahrenheit 451 has eluded me. Today I remove it from my list.

Something about Ray Bradbury More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Jul 15, 2008

Jenny rated it:

Ray Bradbury is amazing..such vision and imagination! This story could have easily have taken place in 2008 yet it was written in the 1950's. Desensitization to human realities (pleasure and thrill of any kind King), TV obsession, and such a decline in an interest to read, the masses don’t hardly blink an eye when books are not only banned, but burned (we aren’t there yet..but you can see some similarities). I love the chase with the mechanical hound that mimics a true “Bad Boy” reality TV cop’ More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 19, 2009

Jim rated it:

I don't usually review classics for obvious reasons, but I flipped through this again the other day & it's still one of the most chilling books I've ever read.

Conform & remember meaningless trivia to be happy. Don't bother with the thorny problems or think for yourself! Immerse yourself in the fantasy world of TV that covers entire walls, so you can be a part of the virtual, mindless world. The shows remind me strongly of the current 'reality TV' craze.

Originally pub More...

0 comments like (12 people liked it)

Sep 10, 2007

Lane rated it:

I first read this book (as most of us did) in high school. At the time, we were taught that it was a remarkable achievement and a literary masterpiece. Upon returning to Bradbury's novel, I must say that I am somewhat underwhelmed. The book isn't bad by any means, but it does not live up to the literary greatness that I remember from 12 years ago. Allow me to explain...

I have this theory that Fahrenheit 451 is one of the last books most people ever read. Along with 1984, Catcher in t More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 22, 2008

Dottie rated it:

Probably my earliest encounter with Bradbury and my only one for many years until I finally got to Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes -- bless Bradbury for such fine reading experiences!

May 2008 re-read:

And now I understand why this one was the only one for so long. It is absolutely stunning. That power stayed with me a long time. It didn't invite further exploration of the author. It almost doesn't invite me to continue my reading addiction. It More...

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 17, 2007

Monk rated it:

This book is a dark horse candidate for me. I was first presented this book when I was fourteen. I hated it. It was old sci-fi, which to a fourteen year-old is unforgivable. I actually failed a marking period of High School for not reading this and a Tale of Two Cities (which I still hate).

However, once it was reintroduced to me later in my college years, it turned out to be a fantastic book about free-thinking, education, and how important it is to make sure that we never get too co More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

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