Fahrenheit 451
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4.0 • 1.7K Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 is a masterwork of twentieth-century literature set in a bleak, dystopian future.
Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 is a masterwork of twentieth-century literature set in a bleak, dystopian future.
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 and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television.
When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Imagine a future where books are outlawed and burned by firemen, who gleefully incinerate all traces of the written word. Guy Montag is such a man, and his emotional journey from destroyer to defender of books is the beating heart of Ray Bradbury’s 1953 dystopian classic—a novel that remains provocative today. Though Fahrenheit 451’s forecast for technology—robotic dogs, seashell earbuds—is quaintly of its time, its vision of a society derailed by shortened attention spans and political apathy is downright prophetic. But futuristic predictions aren’t really the point. Bradbury’s cinematic imagery and lyrical bursts of metaphor seek to articulate the aching loneliness of a world without literature to spark our intellect and soul.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After years of working as a fireman one who burns books and enjoys his work Guy Montag meets a young girl who makes him question his profession and the values of the society in which he lives. Stephen Hoye's narration is perfectly matched to the subject matter: his tone is low and ominous, and his cadence shifts with the prose to ratchet up tension and suspense. He produces spot-on voices, and his versions of the gruff Captain Beatty, the playful Clarisse, and the fearful professor Faber are especially impressive. A Ballantine paperback.
Customer Reviews
See AllFm confused by the typos
I might expect to see OCR typos in a free, public-domain ebook; but it's inexcusable when paying US$10 for one from a well-known publisher like Simon & Schuster. There were many that served to interrupt the narrative, and thus, break the spell of the book. The oft repeated Fm instead of I'm was one of the most glaring.
You're making money; this is your industry. Please, hire a proofreader. It's one of the things that's supposed to separate you from the minor leagues.
With apps at least you can get an update; how about here? If not; I'm sure I'll think twice before buying another book published by Simon & Schuster.
Outstanding & very relevant storyline but.....
Sprinkled throughout this book are typos. A capital "F" used in place of "I'm" or "I've" or "/" used in several places for ending ". For 10 bucks AND for such an important work, I would have expected higher QA/QC! This is way I give it only 2 stars: to draw you attention to the poor quality of the electronic version of this book!! For all the news about the availability of the book in electronic form, you'd think someone would have exercised higher quality control.
Having said that, the storyline is wonderfully timed for our world today and if you've already enjoyed this book a long time ago, rereading it again with the world as it exists could easily send shivers down the spine with how accurately the author described the future. Most poignantly, he foresaw the Internet: information highway, as opposed to a knowledge highway.
Tomorrow as told by Yesterday
Fahrenheit 451 is a harrowing warning on what society may look like when authoritarians rule all. Ray Bradbury does an excellent job portraying how dull life can become when media loses all of its substance, and when humans take the easy path as opposed to the one that makes them think. A story still relevant today all this time later, a story about tomorrow told by yesterday.