From the Bookshelf of Catching up on Classics (and lots more!)…

Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury

Start date: October 1, 2020

Finish date: October 31, 2020

Discussion: New School Classics- 1915-2005

Why we're reading this: Buddy Read September 2025

Previous Reads:
Revisit the Shelf Reread, October 2020
Revisit the Shelf Reread, O…more
[close] Buddy Read September 2025

Previous Reads:
Revisit the Shelf Reread, October 2020
Revisit the Shelf Reread, October 2017
Contemporary Classic Group Read, April 2013

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 394 topics — 15,550 comments total

New School Classics- 1915-2005

The Stepford Wives - Spoilers
By Lynn , New School Classics · 16 posts · 45 views

last updated Sep 29, 2025 01:54PM

The Stepford Wives - No Spoiler Thread
By Lynn , New School Classics · 18 posts · 60 views

last updated Sep 15, 2025 11:39AM

showing 10 of 19 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Dec 26, 2015 Franky rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

“We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren’t happy. Something’s missing.”

Fahrenheit 451, a book that frequents many a required reading list in high schools. It has commonly been labeled a “book about burning books”, but I think this label is a gross misrepresentation. One of the great aspects of Fahrenheit 451 is that is covers a vast amount of ground: it goes well beyond book burning. It surpasses this, and becomes a book about the future, about thought, about conversation, and about “We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren’t happy. Something’s missing.”

Fahrenheit 451, a book that frequents many a required reading list in high schools. It has commonly been labeled a “book about burning books”, but I think this label is a gross misrepresentation. One of the great aspects of Fahrenheit 451 is that is covers a vast amount of ground: it goes well beyond book burning. It surpasses this, and becomes a book about the future, about thought, about conversation, and about questioning society’s norms. To offer up a cliché, it is a book “well ahead of its time.” To take that a step further, it is a book that speaks to our times, our world. It is about not-conforming in the face of a society that conforms. It is about the dangers of a “brain-dead”, superfluous society who consumes mindless entertainment over critical thought. It is about the ills of a technologically “advanced” society that has, ironically, regressed and is backwards.

In short, it is many things.

I also feel that this is a novel about waking up, changing one’s direction and outlook in life. Montag, the hero of the novel, goes about his daily routine of being a firefighter until he meets Clarisse, a free thinking teenager, who questions him rather simplistically, asking, “Are you happy?” This simple question sets off a major epiphany for Montag, who begins to question who he is, who is married to, what is the meaning of their society, and how did this all begin. In a society where free thought, individualism, and knowledge are frowned upon and outright discouraged, Montag begins to wonder “what if?” What if he tried to discover how things came to be, and decided to read, to gain knowledge, and perhaps understand? From here, Montag embraces his role as a nonconformist, and begins to seek out means to discovering and unearthing every amount of knowledge he can about the past, his world, and how to change it. But how? He remembers meeting a college professor at the park, a man named Faber….

Bradbury’s dystopian work is a bit extreme, and probably exaggerated, but surely it represents a relevant discussion piece when you consider the somewhat superficial digital, instantaneous world we live in now. Consider this scenario: You are out to dinner and observe a family of four—a husband, wife, and their two children, a daughter and a son—having dinner as well. However, you notice they are not speaking or conversing, but rather spending the entire time in the restaurant on their digital devices. Oh sure, they do look up at times—to request a refill of soda, or to get up and use the restroom—but lacking is family interaction. Their interaction is the social media on their device. This is a scene that puts Montag’s wife, Mildred, into proper perspective.

Bradbury certainly makes the case that technology and innovation, while certainly advantageous when used correctly, can be a double-edged sword if not used up to par. For this reason, Fahrenheit’s “classic” status is well suited. It applies to many society and times. This novel is more powerful each time I read it, as its message and themes go well beyond its one hundred plus pages, and I pick up something new that I missed the previous time. For that reason, it is one of my favorites.

Has our society become digressed to the extreme depicted in Fahrenheit 451? Probably not. IHowever, I think the novel symbolizes a cautionary tale about what life could be like if technology replaces thinking, conformity replaces individualism, superficial entertainment replaces human emotion. In this sense, Bradbury’s work is stunningly appropriate to us, I think. Montag is the crusader who embodies the vision of change. Once he finally begins to question, he finally begins to actually live—and think.
...more

14 likes · Like · see review

Oct 10, 2017 Katy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

"Stuff you eyes with wonder. "

A timely book that still warns of a dytopian future ...more

10 likes · Like · see review

Jun 15, 2014 Franky rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, amazing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I have wanted to go back and update reviews for some of my favorites, ones that I read years ago, but go back to. Fahrenheit 451 is one such novel, and it has the staying power to still be applicable to our world more than fifty years after it was published.

Much like The Hunger Games series of today, Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian that explores the ills of a government that is too powerful and controlling. However, I think Bradbury’s novel goes well beyond the scope of this type of critique; it I have wanted to go back and update reviews for some of my favorites, ones that I read years ago, but go back to. Fahrenheit 451 is one such novel, and it has the staying power to still be applicable to our world more than fifty years after it was published.

Much like The Hunger Games series of today, Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian that explores the ills of a government that is too powerful and controlling. However, I think Bradbury’s novel goes well beyond the scope of this type of critique; it is also a social commentary that explores the results of a “brain dead” and apathetic society. In this society, people fail to question, fail to challenge, fail to reason. They go about their daily lives like sheep. To take this a step further, not only has this world lost their voice, but the vast majority fail to even recognize that they have one. There are some exceptions, however.

Montag, the book’s protagonist, is woken up to the truth early in the book by his neighbor, a girl named Clarisse. She asks him a simple question, “Are you happy?” Pondering over this, Montag, a fireman who goes out and helps to burn books, questions not only his “work”, but the very nature of the world they are living. He begins to see the topsy-turvy and backwards world they live in with a different lens, and a vast emptiness and void consumes him. Seeing the world in its true colors, Montag’s experiences an awakening. This transformation and new outlook is also propelled forward by Faber, a former English professor who knows the history and power of books. Books come to symbolize the vary concepts that characters like fire chief Beatty want to crush: values, ideas, emotions, individual thought.

Although Fahrenheit 451 is often labeled as a young adult book, this is a book that anyone can appreciate and identify with because of its universal message. Bradbury’s novel has many thinking points about society’s collective consciousness, or lack thereof. If we get to a point where we are mechanically going through life without one care or another, then we have lost. Within the context of this backwards society is a scary Mechanical Hound, a watchdog of sorts, designed to keep everything in order.

There are definite similarities to another fantastic dystopian novel, 1984. I think ultimately Fahrenheit 451 has an upbeat outlook, more so than Orwell’s brilliant novel. Over all, Fahrenheit 451 is a book that has deserved all the praises it has received.

This particular edition is the 50th Anniversary edition of the publication and has a very insightful interview with Bradbury in the afterward. He sheds light on his inspirations for writing this book.

...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Jan 30, 2020 Rianto Dermawan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Fahrenheit 451, the temperature level when the fire began to burn the book. Imagine there is a place where no one is allowed to own and read a book. Goodreaders must protest and take action.

"We burned a thousand books. We burn a woman. "
" Okay? "The living room exploded with sound."
"We burned copies of Dante and Swift and Marcus Aurelius. "
" Isn't he European? "" Something like that. "
" Isn't he a radical? "" I never read it. "

Ray Bradbury wrote this, a dystopian fiction book , published in 195 ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Dec 02, 2016 Kendall rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

If there is another book published in 1951 that is more relevant to this moment, I can't imagine what it would be.

451 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which books ignite. Guy Montag, the novel's protagonist, knows this because he is a fireman. His job is to burn houses with books. The government is not totalitarian; it is giving the people what they want. The government burns books because people would rather entertain themselves to death with walls of televisions broadcasting reality c If there is another book published in 1951 that is more relevant to this moment, I can't imagine what it would be.

451 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which books ignite. Guy Montag, the novel's protagonist, knows this because he is a fireman. His job is to burn houses with books. The government is not totalitarian; it is giving the people what they want. The government burns books because people would rather entertain themselves to death with walls of televisions broadcasting reality crap: "The Family."

Populism anyone? Keep up with the Kardashians?

But Guy experiences a series of events that awakens his soul, and the novel involves a battle for that soul. The contestants for his soul are his fire chief (Beatty, representing the entertainment culture) and a former English professor (Faber) who lost his job when students no longer studied liberal arts. Their words, written almost 70 years ago, are eerily prescient.

The fire chief acts as apologist for their new normal in which people pursue "[m]ore sports for everyone, group spirit, fun, [where] you don't have to think . . . ." The government banned books only after they stopped selling. "There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, . . . Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick." The government only gave the people what they wanted. Little wonder comic books and "three-dimensional sex magazines" survived.

What is needed? What is the antidote found in books? According to Faber, "Number one, . . . quality of information [authenticity]. Number two: leisure to digest it [when not racing around under the domination of the entertainment media]. And number three: the right to carry out actions based on what we learn from the interaction of the first two."

This science fiction is hardly fiction. You get timely ideas, written in 1950s surrealistic prose that sometimes mimics the beat poets, all wrapped in a rip-roaring story that I won't spoil here. One of the best, most entertaining, and most important books I have ever read. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jul 13, 2015 Shawnie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dragons-jetpacks-bc, scifi, own-it, audio-book

Listened to audio in May 2015. Re-read book in July 2015. I enjoyed it better the 2nd time around and caught more details.

1 like · Like · see review

Jan 17, 2022 Karen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book becomes more important and more relevant as time goes on...

"Colored People don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn it. Someone's written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book."

"Montag, You are looking at a coward. I saw the way things were going, a long time back. I said nothing. I'm one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when no one would listen to the 'guilty ...more

Like · see review

Oct 04, 2016 Ian Anderson rated it liked it · review of another edition

Fahrenheit 451 follows Guy Montag, a fireman who questions the reason behind his profession and how it came about. This fire ‘man', however, isn’t a fire ‘fighter'. Guy montage doesn’t fight fires for a living, he creates them. The society he lives in forbids people from having any type of intellectual freedom and creativity. People don’t ask questions --if they do, they must prepare to pay the consequences.

Guy Montag is one of those people. Millions of books are burned and destroyed to prevent ...more

Like · see review

Jun 12, 2020 Nancy (Colorado) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Well, this is a whole new take on the burning of books, and, yet, the very importance of why we need books.

Like · see review

Oct 23, 2016 Sharon rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, read-aloud, dystopia, gilmore-girls, gilmore-girls-complete, 2017-read

The first time I read Fahrenheit 451, I was in high school, and I really enjoyed it. This time, I was surprised by how relevant it is today, in 2017. It's always interesting to re-read classics, or re-read books at different ages and stages in your life, but my view of Fahrenheit is a little different. I think it has become more relevant with time, not just for me, but for everyone. I think it's an important book to read, and re-read.

If you haven't read this in 15 years or so (or ever), pick up ...more

Like · see review