Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780006546061
Edition: New edition
ISBN: 0006546064
Label: HarperVoyager
Manufacturer: HarperVoyager
Number Of Pages: 192
Publication Date: August 16, 1993
Publisher: HarperVoyager
Studio: HarperVoyager

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen don't put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place where trivial information is good, and knowledge and ideas are bad. Fire Captain Beatty explains it this way, "Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs.... Don't give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy."

Guy Montag is a book-burning fireman undergoing a crisis of faith. His wife spends all day with her television "family", imploring Montag to work harder so that they can afford a fourth TV wall. Their dull, empty life sharply contrasts with that of his next-door neighbour Clarisse, a young girl thrilled by the ideas in books, and more interested in what she can see in the world around her than in the mindless chatter of the tube. When Clarisse disappears mysteriously, Montag is moved to make some changes, and starts hiding books in his home. Eventually, his wife turns him in, and he must answer the call to burn his secret cache of books. After fleeing to avoid arrest, Montag winds up joining an outlaw band of scholars who keep the contents of books in their heads, waiting for the time society will once again need the wisdom of literature.

Bradbury--the author of more than 500 short stories, novels, plays and poems--including The Martian Chroniclesand The Illustrated Man--is the winner of many awards, including the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. Readers aged 13 to 93 will be swept up in the harrowing suspense of Fahrenheit 451, and no doubt will join the hordes of Bradbury fans worldwide. --Neil Roseman




Rating: - "We went right on insulting the dead..."
I've been checking out some of the classics that I never gave a chance while in high school, now that I'm a much more aware and mature reader. "Fahrenheit 451" was something I always wanted to read but never got around to it. Well, I have finally read it and the time was very much well spent. Ray Bradbury offers a bleak and dim future where thinking for yourself is against the law.

Guy Montag's life had always been simple. He understood the order of things, and he understood the nature ... Read More

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Rating: - Excellent premise, variable delivery
Bradbury wrote the book as a short story and was asked to expand it to be big enough for a novel, and it shows a little.

His arguments are excellently framed and you do get absorbed by a couple of the characters, in the very short time you have with them.

Overall, I felt a little hungry after reading it. It seems to fall between two stools and could have been a great longer novel if the character development had continued, or a fantasically punchy short story. It's neither in ... Read More

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Rating: - A book that continues to touch on modern life
Though I was long familiar with many of Bradbury's works, I had put off reading "Fahrenheit 451" in favor of other books until a friend lent it to me recently. After reading it, I'm angry with myself for having taken so long to pick it up. This book is a fantastic tale of a future society that abandons intellectual development and destroys its books. Like all great literature, it offers insight into our society today despite having been written over a half-century ago, and it continues to reward ... Read More

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Rating: - "Books ought to have a happy ending !"
Did you notice that nowadays writers and filmmakers tend to make no difference between Horror and Science-Fiction? 'Alien' is not SF but Horror, a very good horror-movie but not really SF. Real Science-Fiction plays not only in the future but in a society very different from ours and with people who have habits and a mentality which also are different from ours. Fahrenheit 451 is a very good example of that. Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature that makes books burn and this is the problem we are dealing ... Read More

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Rating: - A message that grows more important every day
It was a pleasure to burn. So begins, with this absolutely perfect opening line, Ray Bradbury’s celebrated exposition of the dangers of censorship. Everybody knows that Fahrenheit 451 is a novel about book-burning, but this story goes much deeper than those not having read it may suspect. Its message truly does become even more germane and prophetic with every passing day. The skeleton of the plot is rather basic, really. Guy Montag is a fireman whose job it is to burn books and the houses in ... Read More

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