March 26 - April 29, 2006

Fahrenheit 451

by Ray Bradbury

What is One Book, One Springfield ?

Sponsored by the Springfield City Library, it is a project that gives all of Springfield - adults, new readers, students and families - the chance to enjoy the same book at the same time by participating in a community-wide read and dialog. The book chosen for 2006 is Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.

"Frightening in its implications... Mr. Bradbury's account of this insane world, which bears many resemblances to our own, is fascinating."
- The New York Times

"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."
-Ray Bradbury

"Three years ago I wrote a short novel entitled 'The Fire Man' which told the story of a municipal department in the year 1999 that came to your house to start fires instead of to put them out."
-- Ray Bradbury , 1953

Published in 1953, the classic Fahrenheit 451 warns of a future as alarming - and as possible - now as it was over 50 years ago. In Bradbury's future American city, books and reading are outlawed. Residents, who do not think, experience nature, or understand their own history, spend far more time with wall-size televisions and omnipresent "Seashell Radio" sets than they do with their fellow human beings. They speed around pointlessly in their automobiles and occasionally attempt suicide to escape their meaningless lives.

For ten years, fireman Guy Montag has enjoyed his job of burning books and the houses that shelter them, until an unconventional young neighbor, Clarisse McClellan, asks him: "Do you ever read any of the books you burn?" This question launches Montag on a quest for the meaning of knowledge and freedom that changes his life forever.

" Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future. "
- Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury , one of the classic authors of the 20th century, has published over five hundred works, including short stories, novels, plays, screenplays, television scripts, and verse. In addition to Fahrenheit 451, his masterworks include The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. All are unforgettable works with the power to change the way we think about ourselves and our world.

Ray Bradbury has won numerous awards for his work, including the Nebula, Prometheus, O. Henry Memorial, Balrog, Bram Stoker, Benjamin Franklin, Aviation-Space Writers and World Fantasy (Lifetime Achievement) Awards as well as the Science Fiction Writers of America Grand Master. He also won the Gandalf Award for Lifetime Contribution to Fantasy in 1980 and the National Book Foundation's 2000 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

The book is available to borrow (in English, Spanish, Russian, and in audio formats) at all branches of the Springfield City Library, and will be for sale at a discount (with your library card) at Edwards Books (in Tower Square) and Waldenbooks (at Eastfield Mall). Pick up a reading guide to provide background information.