Fahrenheit 451 in Pick-a-Shelf

Feb 01, 2008 Carrie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, 4-and-a-half-to-5-stars, classics, favorites, dystopia, mini-tbr-1, read-my-shelves

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The main character is Guy Montag a fireman. But not in the way that we know it. In this time in the future houses are
safeguarded against fires, these fireman set fires, they are known as "book burners". Because books where for burning they
corrupted the mind. But thanks to the interesting free thinking characters that we meet Montag realizes what he has to do. He realizes that books are something to be saved and read. It wasn't a crime to take joy in what lies between the pages. Do to his actio ...more

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Aug 23, 2008 Luann rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, lost-lit, science-fiction, adult, 2009, movie, libraries, dystopia

Why did I wait so long to read this? I think this should be required reading in library schools. I think this should be required reading for everyone who loves books - and everyone who doesn't! This is well-written with a powerful message, yet at the same time a wonderful science fiction story with cool technology!

The edition I read has an author's afterword where Ray Bradbury gives examples of people (or butchers/censors to use his words) who have changed or altered his works in some way. He s ...more

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Apr 28, 2008 Joanie rated it really liked it

Shelves: bookclub

I read this for book club, I knew the basic premise of the story from seeing the movie years ago but the book is fantastic. Guy Montag is a fireman in a futuristic society where books are illegal and a fireman's job is to set fires-burning the books (and homes) when anyone is found in possession. Montag meets a young girl and starts to question why thing are the way they are. Bradbury's writing is amazing, the story is very fast paced and suspenseful. ...more

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Aug 11, 2009 Slayermel rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, fiction, mystery, own, made-into-film, science-fiction, book-club, dystopia, kobo

I found this book very hard to rate after I finished reading it, and had to walk away from it for a bit to ponder my feelings on it.

Some of the messages in the book were a bit frightening especially when you compare them to today, the constant bombardment of advertising, people wanting bigger and better televisions that take up more and more of the wall space. People in general are not as social as say our Grandparents Generation, when everyone knew their neighbours on a friendly basis, and wou I found this book very hard to rate after I finished reading it, and had to walk away from it for a bit to ponder my feelings on it.

Some of the messages in the book were a bit frightening especially when you compare them to today, the constant bombardment of advertising, people wanting bigger and better televisions that take up more and more of the wall space. People in general are not as social as say our Grandparents Generation, when everyone knew their neighbours on a friendly basis, and would keep a watchful eye and discipline the children of the neighbourhood. In some ways we really aren’t that far off from the story. The one I find particularly disturbing is the inability to think for oneself, in more and more workplaces now a days there are set ways of doing things and having to think outside of the box is becoming a rare talent that is not being used as much as it probably should be. Most people just want to do their job and go home, and are happy to have employment, with a steady pay cheque.

Fahrenheit 451 is about a Fireman named Guy Montag; his job like all Firemen is to burn books. The calls usually come in during the middle of the night and they race off to torch books and the house they have been found in. Guy had enjoyed his job for ten years and had never questioned what he does until one day on the way home he met an eccentric girl named Clarisse who asked him a bunch of simple questions that he had never thought of before. Her innocent questioning started Guy thinking, which lead him down a road he could never turn back from.

In the back of the book I have Ray Bradbury discusses some of the things we have done to books already, by editing them to shorten them for schools as well as taking out and censoring them for the students and by doing so changing the book to suit them. Which caused me to think in many ways we are already as bad as the Fireman in this novel, we are changing works of literature that are not ours to change, we are denying and controlling what people may or may not read, who gave us the right to do so. Ray Bradbury made a comment which has really stuck with me and I have been thinking about it a lot today “There is more than one way to burn a book”, and I have to say he is correct.

I think this is a worthwhile read for anyone, the message of the book more so then the story itself really resonates with me.
...more

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Nov 16, 2009 Sunflower rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction-read-2009, library

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

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Oct 07, 2008 Lauren rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2008, classics, before-you-graduate

This book was wonderful and terrifying. I love books, and I can't think of burning them (although there have been a few books so terribly written that I am tempted...).
What happens when the culture becomes that of simply living for shallow feelings of "happy"? Ray Bradbury explores this,
and his conclusion is scary. ...more

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