Fahrenheit 451 and Related Readings

by Ray Bradbury

The Bradbury classic about a future crisis in intellectual freedom and book burning. Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns.

218 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1998

About the author

Ray Douglas Bradbury was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction.

Bradbury is best known for his novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and his short-story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), and The October Country (1955). Other notable works include the coming of age novel Dandelion Wine (1957), the dark fantasy Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) and the fictionalized memoir Green Shadows, White Whale (1992). He also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick and It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works were adapted into television and film productions as well as comic books. Bradbury also wrote poetry which has been published in several collections, such as They Have Not Seen the Stars (2001).

The New York Times called Bradbury "An author whose fanciful imagination, poetic prose, and mature understanding of human character have won him an international reputation" and "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream".

Reviews

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like most books of its ilk, Farhenheit 451 painted a picture of our future, which is now our past, that was hauntingly accurate to an exaggerated degree. The events leading up to the present in the book feel as though they could very easily happen in today's world, and could very well already be set into motion. As I've noticed with many classic science fiction novels and stories, the rise and fall of mankind is somewhat accelerated in comparison to the actual way the evolution of modern man has played out, but the possible future detailed in Farhenheit 451 is still possible, and given today's political landscape it does not seem to be out of the question, at least in concept.

To live in the world of Farheneit 451 is to live life not as a human being but as an automaton destined to live a life as determined not by your own free will but by those who claim to have your best interests in mind, and if that doesn't make a statement reflective of today's society then I don't know what does.

[Tomer Tishgarten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting how such an old book predicts the future of media.

[Annmarie Garcia Sheahan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will forever reread this book—my favorite of all time—and never cease to learn something new from it. Bradbury is master.

[Kendra · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting book. I don't think it was my favorite.

[Emily A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Im reading it for school