Fahrenheit 451

Name: Fahrenheit 451
Rating: 4.206467628479004 (402 reviews)

Ray Bradbury

Feb 2013 · HarperCollins UK

4.2

402 reviews

Ebook

240

Pages

Eligible

About this ebook

The hauntingly prophetic classic novel.

Over 1 million copies sold in the UK.

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.

The classic novel of a post-literate future, Fahrenheit 451 stands alongside Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World as a prophetic account of Western civilization’s enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity.

Bradbury’s powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a novel which, forty years on from first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.

Ratings and reviews

4.2

402 reviews

Harry D

August 13, 2016

Neither the storyline nor the characters are particularly engaging, and this book presents a series of events which seem inevitable and convenient, rather than influenced by the main character in any way. There is a failure to create any empathy for the characters in the story. The only reason this could be considered a page turner is that the hype surrounding it leads you to keep reading in anticipation of getting better. It is clear to see why so many publishers turned it down originally.

10 people found this review helpful

S D

March 13, 2023

I read this because it's considered a modern classic. it's short, a good story, and although I am happy to have read it, I did not really like the style: too many metaphors for my liking which sometimes were great and evocative, but otherwise I felt it was too much.

Rob Williams

June 20, 2013

Short story first published in Playboy according to the notes at the end. Definitely worth a read, although very much a study on society instead of a hi-tech sci-fi. Given the story is mainly concerned with the slightly hysterical main character, it can be slightly hard at times to work out what's actually going on. Persevere with it, and it all starts to fit together.

18 people found this review helpful

About the author

One of the greatest science fiction and fantasy writers of all time, Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois, in 1920. He moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1934. Since his first story appeared in Weird Tales when he was twenty years old, he published some 500 short stories, novels, plays, scripts and poems. Among his many famous works are Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man and The Martian Chronicles. Ray Bradbury died in 2012 at the age of 91.

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