About the Author

Ray Bradbury has published some 500 short stories, novels, plays and poems since his first story appeared in Weird Tales when he was twenty years old. Among his many famous works are ‘Fahrenheit 451’, ‘The Illustrated Man’ and ‘The Martian Chronicles’.

Reviews

‘‘Ray Bradbury’s gift for storytelling reshaped our culture and expanded our world’ Barack Obama ‘Fahrenheit 451 is the most skilfully drawn of all science fiction’s conformist hells’
Kingsley Amis ‘Bradbury’s is a very great and unusual talent’
Christopher Isherwood ‘Ray Bradbury has a powerful and mysterious imagination which would undoubtedly earn the respect of Edgar Allen Poe’ Guardian

In this foremost example of dystopian fiction, Bradbury twists the heroic role of firefighters. In a futuristic society, firemen don't put out fires, they start them. Specifically, they burn books and the subversive ideas contained within their pages. The trouble begins when one fireman, Guy Montag, begins to question the system and seeks to escape the control of the city. Hoye is a superb guide through this terrifying world, moving both action and reflection along with exactly the right pacing. First published in 1953, the story remains disturbingly contemporary and the ending, with its determination to keep books alive by memorizing them and speaking them aloud, is well suited to the audio medium. The 1996 film, directed by Francois Truffaut and starring Julie Christie and Oskar Werner, veers from the original story, making it particularly useful as a student exploration of the differences between Hoye's interpretation of Bradbury's words and Truffaut's greater liberties with the text. (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.