Picture this: book banning is rampant, huge screens playing mindless slop dominate home living rooms, and people would rather zone out with drugs and entertainment than deal with the world around them. Those aren’t (just) the week’s biggest headlines; they’re key elements of the 21st-century society Ray Bradbury predicted way back in 1951.
You probably know Fahrenheit 451 as the book in which firemen don’t put out fires but start them in homes where people are found to be hiding books. Yes, and: in the future Bradbury imagined, book bans were a symptom, not the disease itself.
This classic novel is about intellectual freedom, the ties between authoritarianism and addictive technology, and the siren song of thinking for yourself.
English (US)