Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden.
Montag never questions the destruction, returning each day to his bland life. But then he meets an eccentric young neighbour who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear, and Montag begins to question everything he has ever known..
Dystopian fiction at it’s finest. Published in the 1950s at a time of concern about censorship in America, the story also foretells the takeover of the screen and the mindless attention it demands in the home.
I love this short novel. I enjoy Bradbury’s writing and the moral journey taken by Montag. And I can’t possibly imagine a world without books?!
Ironically, this book – a book about banning books – was once banned in the States!
Read it in one sitting and then be grateful that you can 😉
“A book is a loaded gun in the house next door… who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?”
PUBLISHED: 1953
GENRE: Dystopian
PAGES: 175
AWARDS: Best Novel Retro Hugo
