“Guy Montag is a fireman. 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 when 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, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.”

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury may be my favorite dystopian novel. I first read it in school as required reading. I enjoyed it then, and I enjoyed it even more when I re-read the book a few years. If you have yet to discover Bradbury, this is a great introduction to his work. There are many other stories by Bradbury that deserve our attention, and I hope you discover them as well, but this one remains a first choice when recommending Bradbury himself. I hope you enjoy it.

Interested in this book? Look for it at your local library. If you’re affiliated with Lindenwood, you can request this book from MOBIUS.