Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

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..

“A book is a loaded gun in the house next door... who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?” 

451 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which the pages of a book catch fire and burn.

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.

Ironically (but perhaps not surprisingly) 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 ;)

Love, love, love it.

Hugo Award Best Novel 1954 Retro.

Published in 1953. 175 pages.