FAHRENHEIT 451

Bradbury’s novel details the eternal war between censorship and freedom of thought and continues to be relevant today more than ever. In Bradbury’s future, books are illegal and happily so--citizens are too busy watching their wall-sized televisions and listening to their in-ear "seashell" radios to care about the loss of good literature. Guy Montag begins the novel as a fireman who enforces the temperature of the title--that at which books burn--but then transforms and tries to show his society the mistake of censorship. It's a treat to hear Bradbury read his own work, almost as if a wise elder were sharing a cautionary tale. Sometimes the slower pace seems awkward for a novel of such action, but overall the reading does justice to the timeless classic. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 02]