Fahrenheit 451
A book about burning books. Bradbury's rage at mindless entertainment and censorship feels more urgent now than when he first wrote it.
Books on Fire
Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel follows Guy Montag, a fireman in a future America where the job of firemen is to burn books rather than extinguish fires. When he meets his free-spirited neighbour Clarisse, Montag begins to question the world he helps enforce. He hides a book. Then another. The world the novel describes, one of wall-sized screens, earbuds blocking thought, and shrinking attention spans, seems less like prophecy every year and more like journalism. Bradbury wrote a significant portion of the novel on a typewriter rented by the hour in a UCLA library basement.
Reading Fahrenheit 451
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"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
"Ray Bradbury · Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury wrote the first draft in nine days on a rented typewriter in the UCLA library basement at ten cents per half hour. The total cost for the first draft was $9.80. He always considered it one of his happiest writing experiences.
Bradbury was furious when the publishers released an expurgated school edition in 1967 without his knowledge, removing content deemed too mature. He refused to approve it and eventually had the original restored.