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Tinderbox
Megan Dunn was in a hole. Her attempt to write a fictional tribute to Fahrenheit 451 wasn't going well. Borders, the bookseller she worked, for was going bust. Her marriage was failing. Her prospects were narrowing. The world wasn’t quite against her – but it wasn’t exactly helping either.
Riffing on Ray Bradbury's classic novel about the end of reading, Tinderbox is one of the most interesting books in decades about literary culture and its place in the world. More than that, it's about how every one of us fits into that bigger picture – and the struggle to make sense of life in the twenty-first century.
Ironically enough for a book about failures in art, Tinderbox is a fantastic achievement; a wonderfully crafted work of non-fiction that is by turns brilliantly funny and achingly sad. … It will also help ensure that you will never ever again be rude to anyone working in retail.
In the author's words:
It is about the end of the Borders book chain, Julie Christie and me – but not necessarily in that order.
It is also about Ray Bradbury, censorship and the end of the world – but not necessarily in that order.
It is also about Jeff intellectual, Bezos freedom, and Piggle Iggle – not in order but that necessarily.
Riffing on Ray Bradbury's classic novel about the end of reading, Tinderbox is one of the most interesting books in decades about literary culture and its place in the world. More than that, it's about how every one of us fits into that bigger picture – and the struggle to make sense of life in the twenty-first century.
Ironically enough for a book about failures in art, Tinderbox is a fantastic achievement; a wonderfully crafted work of non-fiction that is by turns brilliantly funny and achingly sad. … It will also help ensure that you will never ever again be rude to anyone working in retail.
In the author's words:
It is about the end of the Borders book chain, Julie Christie and me – but not necessarily in that order.
It is also about Ray Bradbury, censorship and the end of the world – but not necessarily in that order.
It is also about Jeff intellectual, Bezos freedom, and Piggle Iggle – not in order but that necessarily.
151 pages, Paperback
First published November 9, 2017
7 people are currently reading
258 people want to read
About the author
Megan Dunn
3 books18 followersMegan Dunn studied Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, graduating in 2006. She won an Escalator award from the New Writing Partnership (now The Writers’ Centre Norwich) and her short story 'The Mermaid and the Music Box' was included in Roads Ahead, a 2009 anthology of new writers published by Tindal St Press. Her first book, Tinderbox, was published by Galley Beggar Press in November 2017.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
October 2, 2018
Many thanks to *Cecily*...I had never heard of this book until she recommended it.
Every November is National Novel Writing Month - “NaNoWriMo”.
Participants are challenged to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.
Author Megan Dunn took the challenge.
Her inspiration was Ray Bradbury’s
“Fahrenheit 451”.
I felt like I was sitting side by side with Megan Dunn during her 30- days of writing.
She’s absolutely adorable. This book is charming - funny- warms your heart - yet the fear & sadness that lives below the surface for serious readers - book lovers - and writers - is a sore spot that never quite leaves us.
Megan use to work for Borders. For many of us - when they went out of business- it ‘was’ like a major Earthquake.
I still remember the mixed feelings I had - when Borders was selling their books for 90% off. We had 3 Border Book Stores all near my house. Each closed permanently at different times. I bought stacks and stacks of books at each ‘close-out’ during their last days: Europa Books, non-fiction new release books- fiction books, etc. It was ridiculous. These books were practically being given away.
Megan’s very humble...
This little book she wrote is brilliant...
but here is a small sample of how she saw herself one early morning:
“I woke up at 6:30am and opened my MacBook Air. I’d been writing for nine days.
Total word count: 6,762. By this time in 1950 Bradbury was reaching for his last dime in his bag of change. He spent $9.80 and produced a masterpiece. Why couldn’t I be a genius?”....
Simply READ THIS BOOK.... keep reading what Megan writes next....
Readers on this site won’t be sorry!!!
Find out why Megan can’t be a normal person.
....read about her love for her dad. My gosh ... I loved him too!!!
....read about the way she uses her timer on her iPhone each day while sitting down to write.
“The timer went off”, ....done for now! 😊📚
....Read about how she imagines Julie Christie
....Read about the collapse at Borders bookstore and her funny work day- memories as a staff member.
....and many more heartfelt surprises!!!!
Wonderful Book!!!
Kindle download is $4.99. A steal!
Every November is National Novel Writing Month - “NaNoWriMo”.
Participants are challenged to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.
Author Megan Dunn took the challenge.
Her inspiration was Ray Bradbury’s
“Fahrenheit 451”.
I felt like I was sitting side by side with Megan Dunn during her 30- days of writing.
She’s absolutely adorable. This book is charming - funny- warms your heart - yet the fear & sadness that lives below the surface for serious readers - book lovers - and writers - is a sore spot that never quite leaves us.
Megan use to work for Borders. For many of us - when they went out of business- it ‘was’ like a major Earthquake.
I still remember the mixed feelings I had - when Borders was selling their books for 90% off. We had 3 Border Book Stores all near my house. Each closed permanently at different times. I bought stacks and stacks of books at each ‘close-out’ during their last days: Europa Books, non-fiction new release books- fiction books, etc. It was ridiculous. These books were practically being given away.
Megan’s very humble...
This little book she wrote is brilliant...
but here is a small sample of how she saw herself one early morning:
“I woke up at 6:30am and opened my MacBook Air. I’d been writing for nine days.
Total word count: 6,762. By this time in 1950 Bradbury was reaching for his last dime in his bag of change. He spent $9.80 and produced a masterpiece. Why couldn’t I be a genius?”....
Simply READ THIS BOOK.... keep reading what Megan writes next....
Readers on this site won’t be sorry!!!
Find out why Megan can’t be a normal person.
....read about her love for her dad. My gosh ... I loved him too!!!
....read about the way she uses her timer on her iPhone each day while sitting down to write.
“The timer went off”, ....done for now! 😊📚
....Read about how she imagines Julie Christie
....Read about the collapse at Borders bookstore and her funny work day- memories as a staff member.
....and many more heartfelt surprises!!!!
Wonderful Book!!!
Kindle download is $4.99. A steal!
September 2, 2018
“People often say I think I’ve got a book in me. Well, I thought I had a book in me too. But it turned out that I actually had Ray Bradbury’s book in me.”
Megan Dunn's first book is a charmingly rambling narrative of her attempt to rewrite Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (see my review HERE) for NaNoWriMo, but from the perspective of the female characters. A book she’s loved since her youth.
“The kind of book that chases you into adulthood, still burning.”
She moves from New Zealand to England, works her way up the career ladder of Borders Books until the company collapses. She marries, but that seems destined to fail. Her novel seems doomed as well: she’s increasingly distracted by Spark Notes and Truffaut's adaptation (see imdb HERE): how he created it, and her identification with the women involved (real and fictional), especially Julie Christie.
So she wrote about her writing - and not writing - and her life in general, instead. Her laptop became her tinderbox.
Image: One of Dunn’s ideas for cross merchandising, from her website
The self-deprecating text has beautiful writing, carefully echoing Bradbury's own, especially re rain, fire, music, and, of course, books. It’s broken into short sections, reflecting her bitty progress, frequently, futilely chasing her wordcount target before the timer goes off.
Lit Crit
When Dunn embarks on the renowned creative writing degree at UEA, she gets outside input, some of which is a revelation to her: “I had no idea my lead character hated men”. That raised a smile and reminded me of the old joke about the literature teacher overanalysing “The curtains were blue” as profound symbolism, when really the author just meant nothing more than that the curtains were not red, green, yellow, or any other colour.
The blurring between fact and fiction, and between her, Mildred/Linda, Julie Christie, and Clarisse becomes murkier. She realises that her version of Mildred is too like herself, rather than as Bradbury wanted her. And yet her whole idea was to make it more feminist.
“My rebooted draft was now a book about a book... Autobiography: the consolation prize.”
Don’t believe her. This is no consolation prize. It stands in its own right as a delightful, funny, poignant, relatable, and utterly original book.
Nevertheless, Dunn is clearly no fan of autobiography and several times, she explicitly wants to avoid the “danger” of writing about herself. Fortunately for readers, she succumbed, ultimately switching between scenes from her life (broadly chronological) and potted history of book and film.
It’s not really a book about a book.
It’s a book about writers - her and Bradbury.
It’s a book about readers - you and me - and how we respond to books we love.
That is why it’s relatable and why it burns brightly, weeks after I finished reading it.
"It was a pleasure to burn" (Bradbury)
There is a version of 451 with a match embedded in the cover, that you strike on the spine!
And there’s a “Lit” version with heat-sensitive paint that is black at room temperature. To read the book, you must apply fire to the pages! See video HERE!
Quotes
• “I’d never burned a book, but I’d been burned by them.”
• “My homage to Fahrenheit 451 was going to be a searing feminist rewrite of Bradbury’s classic, like Jean Rhys’s ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’, only blonder.” (See my review HERE.)
• “Light twisted through the window, casting doubt over everything.”
• “In the evening, the sky wriggled out of its grey sweatshirt and pulled down its black tailored sleeves.”
• “Their marriage was an elastic band that had lost its pull.”
• “Customers rarely chose a book that I couldn’t fully endorse, Yet, how could I have read every title?”
• “Sometimes love doesn’t return from a Ryanair holiday.”
• “His house is a Jenga stack of books… When I opened each book I could smell time.”
• “Grazing the written word” - what Borders was best for.
• “Their novels rehearsed into tantalising soundbites passed out like hors d'oeuvres.” (Creative writing students around agents.)
• “Feelings filled the space between us like static.”
• “My cape trailed behind me like a sarcastic comment.” (After a Harry Potter day at Borders.)
• “I know what temperature books burn at. Half price.”
Snippets about 451 Book and Film
NOTE: This is a brilliant book, but you need to be familiar with 451 to get the best from it. Book, film, or even better, both.
“Half the enjoyment of reading literature was collecting the symbols like charms on a bracelet then holding them up to the light.”
• Faber is named after the publishing company (maybe not a surprise) and (less obviously) Montag after a paper company.
• The short story on which the book was based, was first published in Playboy, under the title ‘The Fireman’. Some people really do read it for the articles!
• Truffaut hand-picked the books that were burned in the opening scene - ignoring legal advice to include only books that were out of copyright. Mostly classics, but not all fiction.
• Bradbury mentions no books by female authors, whereas Truffaut used several, including Pride and Prejudice, Gone with the Wind, and Jane Eyre (and also Fahrenheit 451).
• Julie Christie plays both Mildred (renamed Linda) and Clarisse. Not a surprise if you’ve watched it, but an important decision and effect.
360° of 451°?
The idea of this book is almost the inverse of Charlie Kaufman's brilliant film, Adaptation (see imdb HERE). In the film, Charlie, in collaboration with his (fictional) twin brother, struggles to write a screenplay of Susan Orlean’s book, The Orchid Thief (see my review HERE), which is intercut with his film of the story Orlean wrote about.
Typos
There are a shocking number of egregious typos for a professionally published book - and I was trying not to notice them. Galley Beggar Press should do better for their authors, but this book is good enough to read regardless.
On the other hand, they do provide the first chapter, free: https://www.galleybeggar.co.uk/extrac...
What Next?
“What have you got to say that hasn’t been said before?”
I hope that chilling, but valid, question doesn’t recur and stymie Dunn’s plans for future books. This is such a curious and original hybrid, I’m not sure where she will go next, but I’m eager to find out. Meanwhile, you can read a variety of short pieces on her website: megandunn.org
Megan Dunn's first book is a charmingly rambling narrative of her attempt to rewrite Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (see my review HERE) for NaNoWriMo, but from the perspective of the female characters. A book she’s loved since her youth.
“The kind of book that chases you into adulthood, still burning.”
She moves from New Zealand to England, works her way up the career ladder of Borders Books until the company collapses. She marries, but that seems destined to fail. Her novel seems doomed as well: she’s increasingly distracted by Spark Notes and Truffaut's adaptation (see imdb HERE): how he created it, and her identification with the women involved (real and fictional), especially Julie Christie.
So she wrote about her writing - and not writing - and her life in general, instead. Her laptop became her tinderbox.
Image: One of Dunn’s ideas for cross merchandising, from her website
The self-deprecating text has beautiful writing, carefully echoing Bradbury's own, especially re rain, fire, music, and, of course, books. It’s broken into short sections, reflecting her bitty progress, frequently, futilely chasing her wordcount target before the timer goes off.
Lit Crit
When Dunn embarks on the renowned creative writing degree at UEA, she gets outside input, some of which is a revelation to her: “I had no idea my lead character hated men”. That raised a smile and reminded me of the old joke about the literature teacher overanalysing “The curtains were blue” as profound symbolism, when really the author just meant nothing more than that the curtains were not red, green, yellow, or any other colour.
The blurring between fact and fiction, and between her, Mildred/Linda, Julie Christie, and Clarisse becomes murkier. She realises that her version of Mildred is too like herself, rather than as Bradbury wanted her. And yet her whole idea was to make it more feminist.
“My rebooted draft was now a book about a book... Autobiography: the consolation prize.”
Don’t believe her. This is no consolation prize. It stands in its own right as a delightful, funny, poignant, relatable, and utterly original book.
Nevertheless, Dunn is clearly no fan of autobiography and several times, she explicitly wants to avoid the “danger” of writing about herself. Fortunately for readers, she succumbed, ultimately switching between scenes from her life (broadly chronological) and potted history of book and film.
It’s not really a book about a book.
It’s a book about writers - her and Bradbury.
It’s a book about readers - you and me - and how we respond to books we love.
That is why it’s relatable and why it burns brightly, weeks after I finished reading it.
"It was a pleasure to burn" (Bradbury)
There is a version of 451 with a match embedded in the cover, that you strike on the spine!
And there’s a “Lit” version with heat-sensitive paint that is black at room temperature. To read the book, you must apply fire to the pages! See video HERE!
Quotes
• “I’d never burned a book, but I’d been burned by them.”
• “My homage to Fahrenheit 451 was going to be a searing feminist rewrite of Bradbury’s classic, like Jean Rhys’s ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’, only blonder.” (See my review HERE.)
• “Light twisted through the window, casting doubt over everything.”
• “In the evening, the sky wriggled out of its grey sweatshirt and pulled down its black tailored sleeves.”
• “Their marriage was an elastic band that had lost its pull.”
• “Customers rarely chose a book that I couldn’t fully endorse, Yet, how could I have read every title?”
• “Sometimes love doesn’t return from a Ryanair holiday.”
• “His house is a Jenga stack of books… When I opened each book I could smell time.”
• “Grazing the written word” - what Borders was best for.
• “Their novels rehearsed into tantalising soundbites passed out like hors d'oeuvres.” (Creative writing students around agents.)
• “Feelings filled the space between us like static.”
• “My cape trailed behind me like a sarcastic comment.” (After a Harry Potter day at Borders.)
• “I know what temperature books burn at. Half price.”
Snippets about 451 Book and Film
NOTE: This is a brilliant book, but you need to be familiar with 451 to get the best from it. Book, film, or even better, both.
“Half the enjoyment of reading literature was collecting the symbols like charms on a bracelet then holding them up to the light.”
• Faber is named after the publishing company (maybe not a surprise) and (less obviously) Montag after a paper company.
• The short story on which the book was based, was first published in Playboy, under the title ‘The Fireman’. Some people really do read it for the articles!
• Truffaut hand-picked the books that were burned in the opening scene - ignoring legal advice to include only books that were out of copyright. Mostly classics, but not all fiction.
• Bradbury mentions no books by female authors, whereas Truffaut used several, including Pride and Prejudice, Gone with the Wind, and Jane Eyre (and also Fahrenheit 451).
• Julie Christie plays both Mildred (renamed Linda) and Clarisse. Not a surprise if you’ve watched it, but an important decision and effect.
360° of 451°?
The idea of this book is almost the inverse of Charlie Kaufman's brilliant film, Adaptation (see imdb HERE). In the film, Charlie, in collaboration with his (fictional) twin brother, struggles to write a screenplay of Susan Orlean’s book, The Orchid Thief (see my review HERE), which is intercut with his film of the story Orlean wrote about.
Typos
There are a shocking number of egregious typos for a professionally published book - and I was trying not to notice them. Galley Beggar Press should do better for their authors, but this book is good enough to read regardless.
On the other hand, they do provide the first chapter, free: https://www.galleybeggar.co.uk/extrac...
What Next?
“What have you got to say that hasn’t been said before?”
I hope that chilling, but valid, question doesn’t recur and stymie Dunn’s plans for future books. This is such a curious and original hybrid, I’m not sure where she will go next, but I’m eager to find out. Meanwhile, you can read a variety of short pieces on her website: megandunn.org
March 26, 2018
A charming, funny, often self-deprecating but thought-provoking autobiographical tale.
In November 2013 Dunn joined the National Novel Writing Month project, for which her idea was to write a feminist update of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. That project foundered, but this book describes that project, interspersed with the story of her life working for Borders bookshops and the demise of the chain. The Truffaut film of Fahrenheit 451 adds a fourth theme.
I enjoyed reading this but must admit that it felt like light relief after 2666.
It feels a little churlish to mention it (particularly having been warned about it in advance), but this book contains a truly shocking number of typos and other spelling errors.
In November 2013 Dunn joined the National Novel Writing Month project, for which her idea was to write a feminist update of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. That project foundered, but this book describes that project, interspersed with the story of her life working for Borders bookshops and the demise of the chain. The Truffaut film of Fahrenheit 451 adds a fourth theme.
I enjoyed reading this but must admit that it felt like light relief after 2666.
It feels a little churlish to mention it (particularly having been warned about it in advance), but this book contains a truly shocking number of typos and other spelling errors.
May 20, 2020
Galley Beggar Press is a small Norfolk based publisher responsible which aims to “produce and support beautiful books and a vibrant, eclectic, risk-taking range of literature” and which declares an aim to publish books that are “hardcore literary fiction and gorgeous prose’. This description has been taken as the criteria for the Republic Of Consciousness prize for small presses (http://www.republicofconsciousness.co...) for which fittingly it has been shortlisted in 2016 (with Forbidden Line) and to date longlisted in 2017 with We That Are Young. Its most striking success though to date has been in being prepared to publish A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing which had taken 9 years to find a publisher and of course went on to win the Bailey’s Prize.
Tinderbox is based around Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, or more accurately (due it emerges at the end of the book to the reluctance of the Bradbury estate to sanction an earlier version of the book which was a Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, only blonder) to the Francois Truffaut film of the book and to the SparkNotes reading guide to the book, more than the book itself.
Fahrenheit 451 is a book which has a special place in my own literary history. I was a big fan of Ray Bradbury as a young reader, he introduced me to short stories as a form - I particularly remember his time travel short story A Sound of Thunder, which of course introduced the concept of the Butterfly effect many years before Lorenz incorporated it to explain chaos theory. I also have distinct, Proustian memories of a plastic bound copy of Fahrenheit 451 which (if not false) I believe means I must have borrowed a copy of the book on multiple occasions from the mobile library van which used to visit my village in Norfolk.
Years later, in 2004, having recently joined my first (and only) Book Group, the other (all female) members of the group mentioned they had never read a science fiction novel and asked me to recommend two for the group to read – my choices were “Fahrenheit 451” and (13 years before the mini-series) The Handmaid's Tale, and they caused the group to shed all their previous prejudices against the genre.
This book similarly ranges across Dunn’s life, with a literary bent. Ostensibly the book follows her attempts during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) to write a 50,000 word novel (a homage to Fahrenheit 451) and tracks across each day, as she frets over her word count (writing to a self imposed thirty minute deadline) each day and to the direction of the novel.
Quickly though other elements of her life begin to impose on the book – as she thinks back on the dissolution of her marriage, and more centrally on her career with the Borders Book Chain (and the events leading to its own liquidation) and more generally on Bradbury’s book and how the future has actually worked out, compared to how he predicted it would, this in turn causing her to reflect on creative writing courses, the rise of Amazon, the ever growing influence of best sellers, the rise (and fall) of e-readers and on literary snobbery.
Although this is to simplify the book – which manages to feature (as key characters) Julie Christie’s hair, Grand Theft Auto, The Teletubbies, Jodi Picoult and much more.
The book – which started as a novel, undergoes a gradual metamorphosis into the part literary critique, part autobiography which we have in our hands.
On the contrary, no apology is necessary and in the (now future) world of literature we now live in, a world of Amazon and mega-sellers of dubious literary quality, what we need more than ever are risk taking small publishers like Galley Beggar Press, and wonderful books like this one.
Tinderbox is based around Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, or more accurately (due it emerges at the end of the book to the reluctance of the Bradbury estate to sanction an earlier version of the book which was a Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, only blonder) to the Francois Truffaut film of the book and to the SparkNotes reading guide to the book, more than the book itself.
Fahrenheit 451 is a book which has a special place in my own literary history. I was a big fan of Ray Bradbury as a young reader, he introduced me to short stories as a form - I particularly remember his time travel short story A Sound of Thunder, which of course introduced the concept of the Butterfly effect many years before Lorenz incorporated it to explain chaos theory. I also have distinct, Proustian memories of a plastic bound copy of Fahrenheit 451 which (if not false) I believe means I must have borrowed a copy of the book on multiple occasions from the mobile library van which used to visit my village in Norfolk.
Years later, in 2004, having recently joined my first (and only) Book Group, the other (all female) members of the group mentioned they had never read a science fiction novel and asked me to recommend two for the group to read – my choices were “Fahrenheit 451” and (13 years before the mini-series) The Handmaid's Tale, and they caused the group to shed all their previous prejudices against the genre.
This book similarly ranges across Dunn’s life, with a literary bent. Ostensibly the book follows her attempts during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) to write a 50,000 word novel (a homage to Fahrenheit 451) and tracks across each day, as she frets over her word count (writing to a self imposed thirty minute deadline) each day and to the direction of the novel.
Quickly though other elements of her life begin to impose on the book – as she thinks back on the dissolution of her marriage, and more centrally on her career with the Borders Book Chain (and the events leading to its own liquidation) and more generally on Bradbury’s book and how the future has actually worked out, compared to how he predicted it would, this in turn causing her to reflect on creative writing courses, the rise of Amazon, the ever growing influence of best sellers, the rise (and fall) of e-readers and on literary snobbery.
Although this is to simplify the book – which manages to feature (as key characters) Julie Christie’s hair, Grand Theft Auto, The Teletubbies, Jodi Picoult and much more.
The book – which started as a novel, undergoes a gradual metamorphosis into the part literary critique, part autobiography which we have in our hands.
“I’m writing a book about Farenheit 451” I explained the ruckus with the estate. The end of borders.
[He] looked uncomfortable “Sounds a bit meta” he said
“Yes it is a bit meta” I reached up and touch my face, cheek burning. Time for another apology. “That’s the last thing we need” I said
On the contrary, no apology is necessary and in the (now future) world of literature we now live in, a world of Amazon and mega-sellers of dubious literary quality, what we need more than ever are risk taking small publishers like Galley Beggar Press, and wonderful books like this one.
December 8, 2017
My homage to Fahrenheit 451 was going to be a searing feminist rewrite of Bradbury’s classic, like Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, only blonder.Megan Dunn’s first book, Tinderbox, is another excellent publication from Galley Beggar Press, one of the UK's most exciting small independent presses, best known for publishing A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, but also responsible in 2017 for perhaps the most original book I read this year, Forbidden Line and the wonderful King Lear take We That Are Young, which recognised by the Republic of Consciousness Prize.
Tinderbox is a fascinating take on Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and the film of the book, on book selling, on the struggles of writing, and on Dunn’s life in general.
As she says on her website (http://www.megandunn.org/2017/09/17/t...
It is about the end of the Borders book chain, Julie Christie and me – but not necessarily in that order.After a seven-year stint with Borders UK, Dunn was still there in 2009 when the chain was put into voluntary administration, perhaps killed by the Kindle (although as Dunn later notes, rival chain Waterstones survives to this day):
It is also about Ray Bradbury, censorship and the end of the world – but not necessarily in that order.
It is also about Jeff intellectual, Bezos freedom, and Piggle Iggle – not in order but that necessarily.
I’d started thinking about Fahrenheit 451 during those last critical months when I was the sales manager at Borders Kingston-Upon Thames. In the wake of Amazon’s Kindle it seemed unlikely that books would ever be banned: instead books are commodified, turned into movies and TV series, rated and recommended in Goodreads, their individual sales histories quantified on Nielsen Bookdata and in the fathomless depths of the Amazon Sales Ranking system. Even the Kindle was named by a branding consultant who suggested the word to Amazon because it means to light a fire. The branding consultant thought that ‘kindle’ was an apt metaphor for reading and intellectual excitement.Returning to her native New Zealand, she joins in with National Novel Writing Month ('NaNoWriMo') and starts to write her first novel, intended to be a re-write of Fahrenheit 451.
She is inspired by the way that Truffaut’s film version cast the same actress as both the young teenager Clarisse (avoiding the Lolitaesque undertones of the original) and Montag’s wife Mildred:
Clarisse and Montag isn’t meant to be sexual, but she’s a teenager and he’s a married man. And she also twirls a dandelion under his chin and asks him if he’s happy. Then she tells him to taste the rain. I snorted. It was pretty forward stuff for the 1950s. I wouldn’t twirl a dandelion under a fireman’s chin now. Let alone ask a married man to open his mouth and let the rain in.And she tries to re-imagine the story from their perspectives. Excerpts of her proto-novel are included, in italics, in the text:
[…]
Truffaut had cast the actress Julie Christie as both Mildred and Clarisse. Christie was British. Bradbury was not happy about this decision because Clarisse was meant to be a schoolgirl. Not a blonde bombshell from the swinging sixties who was in her mid-twenties. The age change didn’t bother me. I liked Julie Christie. She looked especially hot as Montag’s wife, wearing a long silken wig with bangs.
I bet Clarisse had a crush on Montag. Crush. A short rush mounted by that high C.But she finds it hard to write against the tyranny of the daily wordcount monitor of the NaNoWriMo, and hard to move the narrative from her own experiences:
The rain fell systematically on the domed roof of the school, like data collating, reacting, endlessly responding.‘This used to be my high school. But it’s changed. When I was here the building was wooden. Of course we would never use the world’s natural resources so carelessly now. When I was your age I didn’t know what I wanted to be. So if some of you feel the same way, I sympathise.’
Seventy-two words. A school visit. Yes! What could be more fitting. In our last year of high school we were always being pestered with work experience opportunities. Wasn’t it entirely possible that Montag might have been sent to Clarisse’s high school to lecture the students on the joys of becoming a fireman? And wasn’t it even more possible that she thought he was hot? I imagined what kind of lecture Montag might give if he was recruiting teenagers for the fire department.
‘Paper burns at Fahrenheit 451,’ he told the class. ‘Flames curdle and blacken the pages till each book crumbles to ash. A library takes time to burn. The other firemen and I stand back and watch it together. We always know that we’ve done the right thing. We harvest the ash and use it as compost. In the fire brigade we value the future of this planet. Our creed is: we burn, so that you don’t have to. ’
Another seventy-eight words. My updated creed was a nice flourish. Bradbury was prescient but not quite so prescient as to predict global warming, recycling and the imminent extinction of the bumble bee.
I woke up at 6.30am and opened my MacBook Air. I’d been writing for nine days. Total word count: 6,762. By this time in 1950 Bradbury was reaching for the last dime in his bag of change. He spent $9.80 and produced a masterpiece. Why couldn’t I be a genius? The failure of my first novel hounded me. It wasn’t even worth $9.80. I couldn’t think of a plot. And I still wrote in disjointed fragments. My own life kept interrupting and changing the script. I wanted to get away from autobiography. I wanted to create with a capital C.What she ultimately ended up with instead is this book, a book about her failure to write her novel, and about her life to that point.
This is a book that, in other hands, might have become, or at least been taken for, auto-fiction, but Dunn is brutally honest, on the page, about her own failings (relationships, sexual, behavioural). For example:
One day I caught a rare glimpse of some customers browsing the sex section. A group of teenage boys flicked to a large graphic image and asked, ‘Have you done this?’And her Acknowledgements at the end begin:
I didn’t reply. But I had.
This is a work of non-fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are, sadly, not the products of my imagination.The book also provides a much more fascinating take on Fahrenheit 451 than I suspect a pure re-write would have done. Dunn is able to comment not just on the book, but also on the Sparknotes (rather appropriately) commentary on the novel, Truffaut’s film interpretation but also the making of his film, and Bradbury’s own life and writing of the novel. Bradbury’s introduction from the 50th anniversary edition and the DVD extras for the film are as much her source as the book and film themselves: in part, she admits, this was driven by issues with the Bradbury estate, but its makes for a very satisfying meta-fictional – or should that be meta-non-fictional – experience.
Dunn rather plays down her achievement. In one of the section of her pro-novel, at the point it has rather lost control, she writes, in the words of Sooty the bookseller, marketing an e-reader called The Tinderbox:
‘Everything’s got a bit messy,’ Sooty said. ‘There are so many different characters and stories colliding in this corridor I don’t know how to keep everything straight. I’m just glad that we finally managed to crowbar something from Hans Christian Andersen into the mix again, because frankly the reference to ‘The Tinderbox’ has really been bothering me.‘But in reality, this is a wonderful debut book and strongly recommended.
December 24, 2017
In 2013, Megan Dunn joined National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Its members were "working towards the goal of writing a 50,000 word novel by 11:59pm on November 30th.". This was to be Dunn’s first novel: a re-working of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 from the point of view of Clarisse McClellan.
Tinderbox is the (non-fiction) account of her failure.
It is wonderful.
Immediately prior to reading this, I re-read Fahrenheit 451. Whilst a lot of the book is about Dunn, about the writing process, about the collapse of Borders, there is also a significant element that is about Bradbury’s story and I would recommend (unless you already know it well) that you read Bradbury’s book before reading this. It is not absolutely essential, but I think it makes for a much more rewarding experience. As it happens, Dunn becomes obsessed with the film by Truffaut rather than the book by Bradbury, and particularly by the "making of" documentaries included in the DVD package. But this is part of the story because there is a lot here about the creative process (at least in as much as it works for Dunn).
50,000 words in a month is 1666.66 words per day. Dunn sets time aside each day using the timer on her iPhone and settles down to work. We get passages from her attempted novel included in the text along with increasingly desperate notes of her word count as it falls further and further behind her target. The text is punctuated by the phrase "The timer went off" when her writing time for the day finishes (there is one use of this phrase in a different context and, at that point, it is possibly the most emotionally powerful sentence in the book, but I will let you find and judge that for yourself).
I woke up at 6.30am and opened my MacBook Air. I’d been writing for nine days. Total word count: 6,762. By this time in 1950 Bradbury was reaching for the last dime in his bag of change. He spent $9.80 and produced a masterpiece. Why couldn’t I be a genius?
The reference to Bradbury is about him renting time on a typewriter a dime at a time in order to write his novel. In interviews, Bradbury often talks about how it cost him $9.80 to write the book: he seems inordinately proud of this!
The novel writing fails, but what we get instead is a book about that failure, about Dunn’s life, about book selling, about books, about Bradbury’s story in particular. I suspect this is actually far more interesting than a straightforward re-telling of F451 would be, even if told from a different character’s perspective. Dunn is able to encompass the book, the film, the appropriately named Sparknotes and Bradbury’s own introduction to the 50th anniversary edition of the book. Because she is not telling us the story, she is not limited and her mind roams more freely around the topics. In the end, we get an insightful commentary on Fahrenheit 451 (she makes it seem a better book than I thought it was!) as well as an entertaining look at the creative process and, as the blurb at the front says, "literary culture and its place in the world".
Dunn’s writing style is very engaging. She is honest about herself (I think!) and her comments on a number of different topics are well observed and insightful.
I’m not an author, but I imagine this is a book that authors and aspiring authors would both enjoy and benefit from. As the book blurb also says: "Tinderbox is one of the most successful books about failure you will ever read." I loved it so much I sat and read it until I had finished it.
Tinderbox is the (non-fiction) account of her failure.
It is wonderful.
Immediately prior to reading this, I re-read Fahrenheit 451. Whilst a lot of the book is about Dunn, about the writing process, about the collapse of Borders, there is also a significant element that is about Bradbury’s story and I would recommend (unless you already know it well) that you read Bradbury’s book before reading this. It is not absolutely essential, but I think it makes for a much more rewarding experience. As it happens, Dunn becomes obsessed with the film by Truffaut rather than the book by Bradbury, and particularly by the "making of" documentaries included in the DVD package. But this is part of the story because there is a lot here about the creative process (at least in as much as it works for Dunn).
50,000 words in a month is 1666.66 words per day. Dunn sets time aside each day using the timer on her iPhone and settles down to work. We get passages from her attempted novel included in the text along with increasingly desperate notes of her word count as it falls further and further behind her target. The text is punctuated by the phrase "The timer went off" when her writing time for the day finishes (there is one use of this phrase in a different context and, at that point, it is possibly the most emotionally powerful sentence in the book, but I will let you find and judge that for yourself).
I woke up at 6.30am and opened my MacBook Air. I’d been writing for nine days. Total word count: 6,762. By this time in 1950 Bradbury was reaching for the last dime in his bag of change. He spent $9.80 and produced a masterpiece. Why couldn’t I be a genius?
The reference to Bradbury is about him renting time on a typewriter a dime at a time in order to write his novel. In interviews, Bradbury often talks about how it cost him $9.80 to write the book: he seems inordinately proud of this!
The novel writing fails, but what we get instead is a book about that failure, about Dunn’s life, about book selling, about books, about Bradbury’s story in particular. I suspect this is actually far more interesting than a straightforward re-telling of F451 would be, even if told from a different character’s perspective. Dunn is able to encompass the book, the film, the appropriately named Sparknotes and Bradbury’s own introduction to the 50th anniversary edition of the book. Because she is not telling us the story, she is not limited and her mind roams more freely around the topics. In the end, we get an insightful commentary on Fahrenheit 451 (she makes it seem a better book than I thought it was!) as well as an entertaining look at the creative process and, as the blurb at the front says, "literary culture and its place in the world".
Dunn’s writing style is very engaging. She is honest about herself (I think!) and her comments on a number of different topics are well observed and insightful.
I’m not an author, but I imagine this is a book that authors and aspiring authors would both enjoy and benefit from. As the book blurb also says: "Tinderbox is one of the most successful books about failure you will ever read." I loved it so much I sat and read it until I had finished it.
March 13, 2018
There are not many things that will make me angry about a book but several dozen typos is certainly one of them. This is especially in a book that is intended as an homage to Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 where that author's name is misspelled as "Brabury" more than once (pages 126 & 144 if you want to check)!
I might have let things slide without comment as #ThereIsAlwaysOne these days, but at the three quarter mark in the text i.e. from pg. 120 of 160, it actually seemed as if the copy editor had given up on reading, as rarely a page went by 'til the end where there weren't 1 or 2 or even 3 typos/ misspellings on every page. Publishing this in this state seems to be a huge disservice to the author and the reading audience. I actually have several other books from Galley Beggar Press in my "To Be Read" list, including Feeding Time and We That Are Young so I certainly hope this isn't a regular quality indicator for that publisher. There are some things that you can forgive cost conscious small indie presses such as minimalist cover designs to cut expenses, but lack of copy editing is not one of them. You would actually hope that they would adhere to a higher standard to set a mark that distinguishes them from the corporate entities.
This otherwise was a rather unique non-fiction novel that starts with the author attempting a rewrite of Fahrenheit 451 from the female characters point of view as part of a Write A Novel In One Month project. She is initially stuck in writer's block, looks to the Truffaut film for inspiration, starts getting sidetracked with the film, doesn't get the Bradbury Estate's permission to continue anyway and then documents the whole experience in general terms and often humorous trivia instead. It actually would have been a lot of fun if I hadn't become so distracted with the errors.
I might have let things slide without comment as #ThereIsAlwaysOne these days, but at the three quarter mark in the text i.e. from pg. 120 of 160, it actually seemed as if the copy editor had given up on reading, as rarely a page went by 'til the end where there weren't 1 or 2 or even 3 typos/ misspellings on every page. Publishing this in this state seems to be a huge disservice to the author and the reading audience. I actually have several other books from Galley Beggar Press in my "To Be Read" list, including Feeding Time and We That Are Young so I certainly hope this isn't a regular quality indicator for that publisher. There are some things that you can forgive cost conscious small indie presses such as minimalist cover designs to cut expenses, but lack of copy editing is not one of them. You would actually hope that they would adhere to a higher standard to set a mark that distinguishes them from the corporate entities.
This otherwise was a rather unique non-fiction novel that starts with the author attempting a rewrite of Fahrenheit 451 from the female characters point of view as part of a Write A Novel In One Month project. She is initially stuck in writer's block, looks to the Truffaut film for inspiration, starts getting sidetracked with the film, doesn't get the Bradbury Estate's permission to continue anyway and then documents the whole experience in general terms and often humorous trivia instead. It actually would have been a lot of fun if I hadn't become so distracted with the errors.
March 22, 2018
This was essentially a book about trying and failing to write a book based on Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. The descriptions of writers block and procrastination were incredibly relatable, with regular flashes of the author's wit and sense of humour. There was no real story - in a way, this was more like a journal, or a glimpse inside someone's head. However, I think anyone who has ever tried to write a book - especially if they've ever tried completing NaNoWriMo - would enjoy this.
My one regret is not reading Fahrenheit 451 first. I expect, having never read Fahrenheit 451, many of the more subtle references went straight over my head. Perhaps I'll come back and re-read it if I ever manage to read Fahrenheit 451.
My one regret is not reading Fahrenheit 451 first. I expect, having never read Fahrenheit 451, many of the more subtle references went straight over my head. Perhaps I'll come back and re-read it if I ever manage to read Fahrenheit 451.
November 14, 2019
This makes me really, really want to read Fahrenheit 451 again.
Also I know this is non-fiction, but my brain refused to take that into account the entire time of reading - the dry, humourous tone and constant shifts between realities sends the whole thing into a very surreal space.
Also I know this is non-fiction, but my brain refused to take that into account the entire time of reading - the dry, humourous tone and constant shifts between realities sends the whole thing into a very surreal space.
February 27, 2022
Tinderbox is a bit special to me as it’s the first book from Galley Beggar’s Press, that I bought (the first I read would be Toby Litt’s Patience) Now I have all the books this wonderful publisher has released and I’m slowly going through them.
Tinderbox is the kind of memoir, I like the best – a bookish/film based one: During Nanowrimo Megan Dunn tried to rewrite Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 from a female perspective. While this was happening, Megan Dunn’s relationship was going through problems, the Borders bookstores she worked in were under administration and she was struggling with keeping up her wordcount.
The end result is a humorous memoir. Megan is able to turn the more tragic episodes in her life into moment where the reader has to let out a giggle. I also liked her wry observations on both Bradbury’s book and Truffaut’s attempt to adapt the Fahrenheit 451. If there is an inner message, it’s probably things do work out in the end or, never try modernise Bradbury.
From all the GBP books I’ve read Tinderbox does not contain any of the experimental language I’m used to. As this book is one about failure at writing a story, it is quite meta and I guess that’s it fits in the Galley canon. It still is a great and flowing read though. Also if there is an unwritten rule about writing about books, I hope more break that – as a reader, I find bookish memoirs or novels addictive.
Tinderbox is the kind of memoir, I like the best – a bookish/film based one: During Nanowrimo Megan Dunn tried to rewrite Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 from a female perspective. While this was happening, Megan Dunn’s relationship was going through problems, the Borders bookstores she worked in were under administration and she was struggling with keeping up her wordcount.
The end result is a humorous memoir. Megan is able to turn the more tragic episodes in her life into moment where the reader has to let out a giggle. I also liked her wry observations on both Bradbury’s book and Truffaut’s attempt to adapt the Fahrenheit 451. If there is an inner message, it’s probably things do work out in the end or, never try modernise Bradbury.
From all the GBP books I’ve read Tinderbox does not contain any of the experimental language I’m used to. As this book is one about failure at writing a story, it is quite meta and I guess that’s it fits in the Galley canon. It still is a great and flowing read though. Also if there is an unwritten rule about writing about books, I hope more break that – as a reader, I find bookish memoirs or novels addictive.
January 25, 2018
Like Megan Dunn I used to work for a huge, shopping mall bookseller chain when I was at university. I’m also a writer, a novelist, like her and her hero, Ray Bradbury. Maybe because I came to writing at the ripe old age of forty and have never expected my work to be anything more than literary drivel I’ve, fortunately, never experienced the angst of writer’s block either for what to write about or the actual content itself. I let it spew out of my head and hands every day, good or bad, and don’t think about it much until it comes time to edit. It works for me and in that respect I think I’m probably closer to Ray Bradbury’s working technique than to Megan’s.
However, I don’t think I have ever read anything that has risen from the ashes of literary defeat with more finesse or humour in my life. Dunn is talented, knowledgeable, witty, insightful and there’s a ton packed into this 150 page gem.
Her narrative runs seamlessly between her attempt to write a 50,000 word book in a month as part of the crazy NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) challenge that takes place every November, the demise of the international chain of book megastores, Boarders, that she used to work for and her exploration of Ray Bradbury’s 1953 masterpiece, Fahrenheit 451 and the enigmatic 1965 movie based on the novel by François Truffaut.
I’m familiar with the NaNoWriMo challenge because several years ago my daughter, India, attempted it. Now, India is gifted writer, fast typist and the best editor I’ve ever encountered but by the end of November she was frayed, frazzled and flummoxed. She steadfastly refused to show me the result, which I have not seen to this day. It didn’t surprise me that Megan felt intense pressure and was destined to failure … on the first attempt.
The fall of Boarders as a metaphor for the burning of books as well as a counter to Bradbury’s sacred libraries brought back those sad, sad days of the apocalyptic threat of the end of the printed word on paper. It also served to frame Megan’s love of the written word and her own ambition to write.
I started reading Fahrenheit 451 at the same time I started Tinderbox (see my review of Fahrenheit 451, January 23, 2018), a copy I bought, ironically, from a Whitcoull’s in North City Shopping Centre. I strongly recommend reading them together even if you’ve read F451 before. It’s almost like reading impossibly hilarious SparkNotes alongside your assigned reading.
Through this book, Tinderbox, we see a past when the value of books was unchallenged and the thought of losing them unbearable, a recent past when it appeared that this was actually going to happen through the burning screens of e-readers, iPads and smartphones and a present with some real hope for the future. After all, Megan wrote a great book, printed on paper and bought by my wife from the great Unity Books on Willis Street in Wellington.
Tinderbox, for all of its light feel has a seriously deep question at its core – where does literature fit in our contemporary world? If you don’t think that’s a serious question then, boy, you’re on the wrong website.
However, I don’t think I have ever read anything that has risen from the ashes of literary defeat with more finesse or humour in my life. Dunn is talented, knowledgeable, witty, insightful and there’s a ton packed into this 150 page gem.
Her narrative runs seamlessly between her attempt to write a 50,000 word book in a month as part of the crazy NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) challenge that takes place every November, the demise of the international chain of book megastores, Boarders, that she used to work for and her exploration of Ray Bradbury’s 1953 masterpiece, Fahrenheit 451 and the enigmatic 1965 movie based on the novel by François Truffaut.
I’m familiar with the NaNoWriMo challenge because several years ago my daughter, India, attempted it. Now, India is gifted writer, fast typist and the best editor I’ve ever encountered but by the end of November she was frayed, frazzled and flummoxed. She steadfastly refused to show me the result, which I have not seen to this day. It didn’t surprise me that Megan felt intense pressure and was destined to failure … on the first attempt.
The fall of Boarders as a metaphor for the burning of books as well as a counter to Bradbury’s sacred libraries brought back those sad, sad days of the apocalyptic threat of the end of the printed word on paper. It also served to frame Megan’s love of the written word and her own ambition to write.
I started reading Fahrenheit 451 at the same time I started Tinderbox (see my review of Fahrenheit 451, January 23, 2018), a copy I bought, ironically, from a Whitcoull’s in North City Shopping Centre. I strongly recommend reading them together even if you’ve read F451 before. It’s almost like reading impossibly hilarious SparkNotes alongside your assigned reading.
Through this book, Tinderbox, we see a past when the value of books was unchallenged and the thought of losing them unbearable, a recent past when it appeared that this was actually going to happen through the burning screens of e-readers, iPads and smartphones and a present with some real hope for the future. After all, Megan wrote a great book, printed on paper and bought by my wife from the great Unity Books on Willis Street in Wellington.
Tinderbox, for all of its light feel has a seriously deep question at its core – where does literature fit in our contemporary world? If you don’t think that’s a serious question then, boy, you’re on the wrong website.
February 5, 2018
Excellent book - a bit close to home for me in some ways (general Border experience), probably a big part of what I loved about it. Really great approach to storytelling and a really great yarn too. Brilliant writing. Well worth it.
February 27, 2018
Very funny, insightful, interesting, tender; all the veries.
November 13, 2021
"Truffaut was French and even though the film was dated it was arty." Wish I could say the same (French, dated or arty, all would be fine for me) about this book. Too much counting words, though. Maybe it works better if you have any affinity with 'Fahrenheit 451'.
"One sentence added to another. I paused. The house hummed around me, like silence, but more than silence." Never try to be more than silence, if you want to convince me.
The best thing about this book was Drugstore playing in the background. Luckily, Isabel Monteiro is a genius who knows about silence.
I know it's hard
When the evening starts
Fading
And your guiding star
Seems to be so far away
"One sentence added to another. I paused. The house hummed around me, like silence, but more than silence." Never try to be more than silence, if you want to convince me.
The best thing about this book was Drugstore playing in the background. Luckily, Isabel Monteiro is a genius who knows about silence.
I know it's hard
When the evening starts
Fading
And your guiding star
Seems to be so far away
March 24, 2020
Thoroughly entertaining sprawling entanglement across a variety of topics, but the main conceit compares Bradbury's imagined future dystopia of a California that has banned books with the slow implosion of the Borders bookstore chain. Although the linking of disappearing books sounds more plausible the way she writes it, and there's a lot about her own experience as a Borders employee. Honest, funny, sincere, clever, there's a lot to love in this book. It doesn't take you away into a fictional place like F451, although sometimes the fictional aspects of the narrative intrude on the non-fiction in a superbly surreal way, but the voice will bring you back to the page.
October 26, 2025
“Each book was a porthole into another world and I imagined what it would be like to be one of the characters trapped inside.”
You know how there are those writers, and there are plenty out there, who can take a seemingly fascinating subject and effortlessly turn into the most dull and tedious crap imaginable?...Well
Dunn seems to have the opposite skill in that she can take generally dull or not particularly interesting subject matters and by the quality of her writing turn them into something really worthwhile and engaging.
Her whimsical, introspective reflections really pull you in and I really find her way of looking at the world incredibly warm, fresh and relatable. This also conjured up some fond memories of the now defunct Borders bookstore chain, which Dunn gives much space to in here, as she worked there across various branches for many years in England.
This also drove me to find out what Binc stickers and a Penguin donkey were?...Also it is both predictable but depressing to be reminded just how greedy, irrational and relentless the hyper-litigious culture of American corporate interests can be.
December 8, 2017
Tinderbox, by Megan Dunn, is a book about the author’s failure to write a book, and how this led to her writing this one. It provides a window into the creative process and much else besides.
In November 2013 Dunn set out to participate in NaNoWriMo. The premise for her novel was a rewrite of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 from the perspective of Clarisse McClellan, the teenager who befriends the fireman in Bradbury’s work. Dunn intended to produce a homage to the book, which she had studied in High School. Things didn’t quite go to plan.
Dunn decides to reread the novel but ends up taking much of her material from Sparks Notes (a study guide) and the 1966 film version of the book, featuring Julie Christie. Dunn admires how Christie dresses and looks. She is also fascinated by the film making process detailed in the DVD extras. She is easily distracted when writing which provides for entertaining asides.
By 2013 Dunn had left behind her career as a bookseller at Borders, a chain of bookshops that went into administration in the UK in 2009. She recounts episodes from her experiences in the various branches where she worked, and of being made redundant. Her recollections are honest and lacking the usual sentiment book lovers apply to booksellers. As an aspiring author she had hoped that inspiration would seep from the pages of the stock she handled but this wasn’t to be.
Dunn struggles to churn out the words required to meet the NaNoWriMo target. She ponders Bradbury’s creative process, how he wrote Fahrenheit 451 on a library typewriter hired by the hour, completing the first draft in nine days. Her own writing refuses to flow.
Dunn reflects on the books that sell well; on culture snobs and the popularity of reality TV; on the rise of Amazon and growth of on-line retail; on Kindles and other eReaders. She studies the future as imagined by Bradbury and observes the habits and technology of today.
The writing is sharp and contemporary. There is no shying away from such issues as the prevalence of downloading digital content illegally. Dunn admits to drug taking and reflects on the breakup of her marriage. She mentions the large number of creative writing courses she enrolled in over the years. It is refreshing to find an autobiographical account of failure that is unapologetic and makes no attempt to garner pity.
I haven’t read Fahrenheit 451 or watched the film referenced but this didn’t detract from my enjoyment. Dunn’s portrayal of book selling was of particular interest. The writing throughout is droll and pithy, the existence of this book an against the odds achievement. It should be recommended reading for aspiring authors everywhere.
In November 2013 Dunn set out to participate in NaNoWriMo. The premise for her novel was a rewrite of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 from the perspective of Clarisse McClellan, the teenager who befriends the fireman in Bradbury’s work. Dunn intended to produce a homage to the book, which she had studied in High School. Things didn’t quite go to plan.
Dunn decides to reread the novel but ends up taking much of her material from Sparks Notes (a study guide) and the 1966 film version of the book, featuring Julie Christie. Dunn admires how Christie dresses and looks. She is also fascinated by the film making process detailed in the DVD extras. She is easily distracted when writing which provides for entertaining asides.
By 2013 Dunn had left behind her career as a bookseller at Borders, a chain of bookshops that went into administration in the UK in 2009. She recounts episodes from her experiences in the various branches where she worked, and of being made redundant. Her recollections are honest and lacking the usual sentiment book lovers apply to booksellers. As an aspiring author she had hoped that inspiration would seep from the pages of the stock she handled but this wasn’t to be.
Dunn struggles to churn out the words required to meet the NaNoWriMo target. She ponders Bradbury’s creative process, how he wrote Fahrenheit 451 on a library typewriter hired by the hour, completing the first draft in nine days. Her own writing refuses to flow.
Dunn reflects on the books that sell well; on culture snobs and the popularity of reality TV; on the rise of Amazon and growth of on-line retail; on Kindles and other eReaders. She studies the future as imagined by Bradbury and observes the habits and technology of today.
The writing is sharp and contemporary. There is no shying away from such issues as the prevalence of downloading digital content illegally. Dunn admits to drug taking and reflects on the breakup of her marriage. She mentions the large number of creative writing courses she enrolled in over the years. It is refreshing to find an autobiographical account of failure that is unapologetic and makes no attempt to garner pity.
I haven’t read Fahrenheit 451 or watched the film referenced but this didn’t detract from my enjoyment. Dunn’s portrayal of book selling was of particular interest. The writing throughout is droll and pithy, the existence of this book an against the odds achievement. It should be recommended reading for aspiring authors everywhere.
May 19, 2019
I read this slim book this afternoon. I enjoyed Megan Dunn's humor and share her fear that Bradbury's dystopian future for books might be playing out now with the demise of bookstores and the popularity of eReaders. Although the argument could be made that it's stories we want to protect far more than how they are delivered. We don't mourn the loss of monks toiling away for months to copy out books by hand and fear the printing press has demeaned literature. I am not one who buys that argument though. I love books. So does Megan Dunn.
Megan tells us this book is about failure and it's nonfiction. It's her story of her time with Borders Bookstores as they were going under and her failed attempt to write a book based on Fahrenheit 451 from the women characters' points of view. Reading it felt like sitting for down for a coffee and listening to Megan tell you about her experiences and about our shared love of books. It's also a statement about the importance of supporting independent presses.
Megan's book was published by Galley Beggar Press, the same press that gave us A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, The Gallows Pole, and We That Are Young There are other small presses bringing us the best in new voices and we readers and book lovers must support them. The book cover of Tinderbox has these sentences, I know what temperature books burn at. Half price. As a book lover who built my own library mostly through used books during a period when I could not always afford new book prices, I understand that for some used books are the only option. For those of us able to buy new books and to buy from and support Indie presses it's especially important that we do in the age of Amazon.
The writing is smart and funny and I look forward to more books from Megan Dunn.
Megan tells us this book is about failure and it's nonfiction. It's her story of her time with Borders Bookstores as they were going under and her failed attempt to write a book based on Fahrenheit 451 from the women characters' points of view. Reading it felt like sitting for down for a coffee and listening to Megan tell you about her experiences and about our shared love of books. It's also a statement about the importance of supporting independent presses.
Megan's book was published by Galley Beggar Press, the same press that gave us A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, The Gallows Pole, and We That Are Young There are other small presses bringing us the best in new voices and we readers and book lovers must support them. The book cover of Tinderbox has these sentences, I know what temperature books burn at. Half price. As a book lover who built my own library mostly through used books during a period when I could not always afford new book prices, I understand that for some used books are the only option. For those of us able to buy new books and to buy from and support Indie presses it's especially important that we do in the age of Amazon.
The writing is smart and funny and I look forward to more books from Megan Dunn.
February 6, 2018
This book made me nostalgic for a time when I was working as a bookseller in London, was virtually broke, trying to write. I have always thought I'd write about that time one day... I might have to wait a while now. This book is quite mad, in a good way. Personally I love books about books. Recommended.
August 1, 2019
I really enjoyed this charming and insightful book about the author and her experience and struggle of trying to write a book about a book, while dealing with all that life was throwing at her! It was funny, heartfelt and just made me want to pick up Fahrenheit 451 and re-read it to add to the experience of noticing the little things you often forget about a book when you've not read it for so long!
It's a book about the impact a book can have a person - the experience of reading and the relationship we all share when we connect with a book or author, and the memories it can evoke from the time in our lives when we pick these books up. It also deals with her time as a bookseller - the bookshop Borders was going through very tough financial times while she worked there and some of the things she noticed about staff and customers was enlightening to say the least! Loved the potted history of Borders as well and why it was created and how the creation of A****N(!) affected sales and how we as readers still have such a deep rooted connection with bookshops.
But the main thread of the story is centred around Fahrenheit 451 - the book and film version are both analyzed as she attempts to write a tribute to it and I loved how her mind just kept wandered as she attempted to hit word counts each day. It also touches on book snobbery, reality tv and how she discovered how prophetic the original F451 was -characters without books to light up their minds become more self obsessed/narcissistic - very apt it seems for the world we live in nowadays. And any book that can include Iggle Piggle in gets a thumbs up from me!
It's a book about the impact a book can have a person - the experience of reading and the relationship we all share when we connect with a book or author, and the memories it can evoke from the time in our lives when we pick these books up. It also deals with her time as a bookseller - the bookshop Borders was going through very tough financial times while she worked there and some of the things she noticed about staff and customers was enlightening to say the least! Loved the potted history of Borders as well and why it was created and how the creation of A****N(!) affected sales and how we as readers still have such a deep rooted connection with bookshops.
But the main thread of the story is centred around Fahrenheit 451 - the book and film version are both analyzed as she attempts to write a tribute to it and I loved how her mind just kept wandered as she attempted to hit word counts each day. It also touches on book snobbery, reality tv and how she discovered how prophetic the original F451 was -characters without books to light up their minds become more self obsessed/narcissistic - very apt it seems for the world we live in nowadays. And any book that can include Iggle Piggle in gets a thumbs up from me!
December 14, 2021
This was a really good read. Kiwi author on her OE working in a bookstore in the U.K wants to be a writer and so attempts to rewrite Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 from the viewpoint of the female character (I read F451 earlier this year so I get all of the references and anyone who wants to read Tinderbox should really read F451 beforehand as well) and she fails at it miserably, so she writes the book about failing at it while also discussing her life, marriage, experiences, and thoughts. A wonderfully crafted, rambling work of non-fiction that is funny and achingly sad and so Kiwi in its nature.
Quite a short book so a quick easy read and very enjoyable. I look forward to reading the author's next book.
Quite a short book so a quick easy read and very enjoyable. I look forward to reading the author's next book.
April 22, 2018
A review for this book? quite simple: It's perfect!
June 29, 2018
I think this work shows a lot of promise for a good essay, but it read like a rough draft that needs more polishing.
I liked the juxtaposition of the writer's life working for Border's Books with Ray Bradbury's book Fahrenheit 451 and the Francios Truffaut 1966 film by the same name. However, I felt there was more discussion between the similarities of the film and her life and not enough of the book used as comparison. I understand there was an issue with the Bradbury estate, but if the author had kept to literary criticism without mentioning Ray Bradbury's personal life, I don't think there should have been a problem. Also, I would have liked for the author to relate the Fahrenheit 451 work to our modern political and cultural society.
I liked the juxtaposition of the writer's life working for Border's Books with Ray Bradbury's book Fahrenheit 451 and the Francios Truffaut 1966 film by the same name. However, I felt there was more discussion between the similarities of the film and her life and not enough of the book used as comparison. I understand there was an issue with the Bradbury estate, but if the author had kept to literary criticism without mentioning Ray Bradbury's personal life, I don't think there should have been a problem. Also, I would have liked for the author to relate the Fahrenheit 451 work to our modern political and cultural society.
April 7, 2018
There are so many things to like about this book that it is hard to know where to start.
There were so many little details that made it a happy place for me. Talk of the Number 73 bus brought back fond memories of Church Street Stoke Newington where friends once lived. The history of the Borders book chain, where I spent so much time (and money) when I worked on Queen Street in Auckland. Those vouchers they used to send by email would have me rushing down to the Ancient History section and buying up handfuls of titles at half price. Then there was Norwich, an English town that I love.
Megan Dunn applied for a place on the creative writing course at the University of East Anglia and was interviewed by Patricia Duncker. I have five of her novels. Back in New Zealand her tutor at Victoria Uni was Harry Ricketts and I have a couple of his books too. So many familiar things that made this a trip through so many of my own memories.
How to explain the plot? Not simple and not singular either. Central is the 1953 novel Fahrenheit 431 by Ray Bradbury, and then the film of the book made in 1966 by Francois Truffaut which starred Julie Christie playing two of the roles. Megan is trying to write about these in her entry for the NaNoWriMo writing competition, 50,000 words in a month. Her story, this story, the collapse of the Borders book chain and the novel and film all become wrapped into one interlinked narrative. There is plenty of humour and plenty of book talk. I laughed when Megan Dunn pokes fun at Jodi Picoult and openly admits that she does not let the fact that she has never read any of Picoult's books stand in the way of her making judgement. That is just how I feel about Jeffrey Archer.
I dipped into YouTube to see some clips of the Fahrenheit 451 movie and that simply enhanced my enjoyment of the book. I look forward to reading this a second time.
There were so many little details that made it a happy place for me. Talk of the Number 73 bus brought back fond memories of Church Street Stoke Newington where friends once lived. The history of the Borders book chain, where I spent so much time (and money) when I worked on Queen Street in Auckland. Those vouchers they used to send by email would have me rushing down to the Ancient History section and buying up handfuls of titles at half price. Then there was Norwich, an English town that I love.
Megan Dunn applied for a place on the creative writing course at the University of East Anglia and was interviewed by Patricia Duncker. I have five of her novels. Back in New Zealand her tutor at Victoria Uni was Harry Ricketts and I have a couple of his books too. So many familiar things that made this a trip through so many of my own memories.
How to explain the plot? Not simple and not singular either. Central is the 1953 novel Fahrenheit 431 by Ray Bradbury, and then the film of the book made in 1966 by Francois Truffaut which starred Julie Christie playing two of the roles. Megan is trying to write about these in her entry for the NaNoWriMo writing competition, 50,000 words in a month. Her story, this story, the collapse of the Borders book chain and the novel and film all become wrapped into one interlinked narrative. There is plenty of humour and plenty of book talk. I laughed when Megan Dunn pokes fun at Jodi Picoult and openly admits that she does not let the fact that she has never read any of Picoult's books stand in the way of her making judgement. That is just how I feel about Jeffrey Archer.
I dipped into YouTube to see some clips of the Fahrenheit 451 movie and that simply enhanced my enjoyment of the book. I look forward to reading this a second time.
December 24, 2017
I know what temperature books burn at. Half price.
In this droll, witty style Dunn walks us through her attempt to write an homage to Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and more to boot. Unapologetically contemporary it is lively and reflective offering a mash-up of fiction and non-fiction mirroring the cultural flux she is writing about and we currently live in.
It's a book snatched from the jaws of defeat (perhaps the jaws of a mechanical hound?) with failures and struggles being the fuel behind it. Don't misunderstand that sentence and mistake this for some extended vacuous think-piece, it far too perceptive for that. It offer a personal literary treatment of what to do when things aren't quite going to plan in there broad frame of 'the creative process'. As someone with a number of friends who are trying to live as would-be creatives its a book that is encouraging and poignant
I'm finishing this review on Christmas eve so it feels like there should be a moral so here are a few takeaways Tinderboxhas left me with:
Culture has got messy(ier?). Everything is bleeding into each other at the moment.
The world is in flux and accelerated, and we can't really guess where its going next
And despite all this, if you're still trying to do your thing, know that what you set out to do might not be what you end up with, but the result may be better than what you set out to do anyway.
In this droll, witty style Dunn walks us through her attempt to write an homage to Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and more to boot. Unapologetically contemporary it is lively and reflective offering a mash-up of fiction and non-fiction mirroring the cultural flux she is writing about and we currently live in.
It's a book snatched from the jaws of defeat (perhaps the jaws of a mechanical hound?) with failures and struggles being the fuel behind it. Don't misunderstand that sentence and mistake this for some extended vacuous think-piece, it far too perceptive for that. It offer a personal literary treatment of what to do when things aren't quite going to plan in there broad frame of 'the creative process'. As someone with a number of friends who are trying to live as would-be creatives its a book that is encouraging and poignant
I'm finishing this review on Christmas eve so it feels like there should be a moral so here are a few takeaways Tinderboxhas left me with:
Culture has got messy(ier?). Everything is bleeding into each other at the moment.
The world is in flux and accelerated, and we can't really guess where its going next
And despite all this, if you're still trying to do your thing, know that what you set out to do might not be what you end up with, but the result may be better than what you set out to do anyway.
December 9, 2020
Surprisingly it’s a relatable book. NaNoWriMo brought into the game quickly, and I was like heeyyy, I’m kind of doing that, I know what that is, it motivated me to put down the first word of a novel. Brave to publish a book which is talking about the bookstore franchise Borders, I am pretty much the youngest possible reader who ever set foot in a Borders, and the book would probably have been hard to get through if you don’t know what Borders is. And most people younger Han me would’ve forgotten seeing the Borders sticker on the backs of their parent’s books and their volumes they bought for two dollars from Vinnie’s.
Not all that deep, not offensive, not essential, not bad, not hard to read and stick by, not re-readable.
I skipped over the extended excerpts of Dunn’s ‘Fahrenheit 451’ rewrite, I’m sorry, just not motivated to read it.
Not all that deep, not offensive, not essential, not bad, not hard to read and stick by, not re-readable.
I skipped over the extended excerpts of Dunn’s ‘Fahrenheit 451’ rewrite, I’m sorry, just not motivated to read it.
February 25, 2018
She writes about not writing a book about not reading. but Farenheit 451 is a book about reading really and her book is about writing really. She also writes about working for Borders books and how irritating life can be in a very amusing way and she clearly loves her dad. also to be commended for the correct use of the adjective 'blonder' and the term 'book porn'.
December 21, 2017
Megan Dunn’s well-crafted first novel is observant, shrewd, and funny. A polished cri de coeur about a culture in flux, Tinderbox left me in a reflective mood.
Reviewed on The BookBlast® Diary 2017
Reviewed on The BookBlast® Diary 2017
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March 28, 2024Awesome perspective on appropriation/plagiarism in art and literature (see ‘Things I Learned at Art School’ by same author) . Kind of 3 story lines at once. Kiwi in London early internet vibes. I love Megan Dunn!
December 18, 2017
interesting read, really enjoyed it
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