2025 & 2026 Reading Challenge discussion

This thread is to discuss Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

Pages: 194 pages

Length: 1 month (June)

Participants: Rosalyn, Lina, Jen, Beth

Everyone reads at their own pace during a Buddy Read. Because participants can be at different parts of the book at different times, it is extremely important to mark spoilers so that the book is not ruined for someone who is not as far along as others!!!

Mark spoilers by placing {spoiler} before the text and {/spoiler} after the text but use the < and > instead of the { and }.

This is a fabulous book--I've read it twice already, so am looking forward to this.

Can I join this one? I own a copy and can start it Saturday. I read it once before but too quickly and don't remember a lot of it.

It is perfect for a prompt in my 52 book club challenge...includes a personal phobia (a world w/o books....the horror)

Hah! That's a great phobia! I reserved it from my husband's university's library and when it arrives I have to sneak in using his card to pick it up, because he won't be there for 2 weeks. If I don't get arrested, I should be able to start on the 1st.

I should also be able to start at the beginning of the month. Looking forward to this!

Okay, okay - fine, I'll join the buddy read - stop twisting my arm already ! 😂

I joke, but I would love to join this you guys this month, mainly because I really want to watch Michael B. Jordan 😍

I have it now. I'm surprised it's only 250 pages.

I would love to join this buddy read. This book's been on my TBR for a while now 😂

Chika wrote: "I would love to join this buddy read. This book's been on my TBR for a while now 😂"

same, i can't believe i've never read this classic before! i just picked it up from my library today, the cover is the michael jordan movie tie-in poster. i'm excited to start reading tonight!

I'm with others who've never read this. Really looking forward to it!

I'm going to start tonight or tomorrow, my copy is 179 pages should go quickly

I have finished and am looking forward to reading what all of you think!

At the beginning of the novel, Clarisse says “17 and insane, they go together.“ Does Clarisse mean that the younger ones are usually the ones that fight back, the ones that question the status QUO?

I'm up to about page 50, where we've learned a bit about Clarisse: she lives with her parents and her uncle, and she doesn't get along with people her age, so she doesn't go to school. So I'm guessing it's not all young people who fight back or question the status quo, just the misfits.

But she also doesn't have anything to lose yet: she's not married, doesn't have a job or kids. If she did have those things, she'd probably not want to rock the boat. She has plenty of time and energy to devote to thinking about how she lives in a totalitarian society and how to change it.

just finished Part 1.

I am gobsmacked. every other line is the richest gem of a sentence, i am most definitely going to have to own my own copy so i can tab it up. i particularly liked the part about Montag's happiness being a mask, and that Clarisse had stole it from him.

I also like reading how people of the 50s predicted future technology, like the "liquid melancholy machine" or the Hound, which reminds me of AI.

Similar to how Montag is scared of the Hound, we are scared of AI, something humans created. Is that projection? That we are afraid of ourselves, or destructive tendencies?

Bradbury seems to demonize TV, which I'm, eh, iffy about. TV to me is another form of storytelling/books, if it's good. Plenty of great movies/shows that hold artistic value. What's the difference between escaping reality through TV vs books? What do y'all think?

Also Beatty's lecture, about how society is moving faster, we're thinking less. I resonate with that so much. And also the demonization of "intellectuals", you can SO see that in US politics right now. it's all about stoking fear and hatred, not listening to experts or, let's be honest, people who are smarter than the avg person.

Very thought provoking.

I agree with the great sentences. It was a very strong start, straight to the point with his meeting of Clarisse and her immediately questioning his happiness...the mask he wore that she stole.

He wrote this when tv was really new and therefore qualifies as one of the new technologies people were afraid of. Several novels of the time that addressed totalitarian states (which were an extension of the Cold War and the American fear of Communism/Soviet dominance) feature tv as an instrument of the state, and that's how I see it here.

Demonizing intellectuals is another favorite tactic of dictatorships. The intellectuals are the ones who speak out and ask questions so they are a threat to totalitarian rule.

I think in this novel's case, it is the misfits (or loners) Clarisse is referring to. She is alone a lot and has a lot of time to think, and this will lead to questioning the status quo

In authoritarian and totalitarian societies, TV is a way of controlling the information people can access. In Russia, for example, all TV is state-controlled and even the internet and mobile phones are heavily censored.

When there's a coup, you'll also notice that TV is very important. The first thing the leaders will do is go on TV to announce the change of government.

So I don't think Bradbury is just down on TV as the squawk box, I think he's thinking of it as a means of state control. But also, 1950s TV was mostly pretty crap, as they figured out what to do with the new medium.

I think with books, you imagine what's happening in your mind, which will be different to how I might imagine it. But with TV, you're telling people exactly what they should see and hear.

Another difference between escaping reality through tv versus books is the part of the brain activated. I still think his main criticism is that tv is weaponized by dictators as a means of control. But we now know through imaging of the brain that watching and reading activate different parts of the brain, reading requiring thinking in ways images don't. Some tv as pointed out can be thought provoking (but not in the same way as reading), but my personal experience only has been that most people I run into do not like tv that makes them think...unless they happen to be readers. So I agree with his demonization of tv in that way...it turned Millie unto sludge. She doesn't even know what the plots are, and more concerningly, doesn't care

Finished today and stunned. So much to process. The writing was breathtaking. Guy’s character development was painful yet uplifting. I loved (view spoiler)[when the folks he met up introduced themselves by the authors or books they had memorized. (hide spoiler)] Many parallels to today, of course, but I feel it’s also important that the era it was written in be kept in mind.

That’s what I’ve processed so far. I’ll be thinking about this for quite a while. I may have to reread sooner than later.

Why do I suddenly want to do more research and then write a book report?

thank you Denise + Jen for your insightful thoughts! i agree, tv is conduit for propoganda, it's certainly easier to consume a visual media rather than quiet your mind enough to sit down and read something.

my version of the book includes at the end, history, context and criticism, and notes by the author. he noted later on that montag was the name of a paper manufacturer and faber a pencil manufacturer. his subconscious must've helped when deciding to name his characters!

i like that the ending was hopeful. it'd be interesting to see the film adaptation. has anyone watched one?

Rosalyn wrote: "thank you Denise + Jen for your insightful thoughts! i agree, tv is conduit for propoganda, it's certainly easier to consume a visual media rather than quiet your mind enough to sit down and read s..."

My version has has the same story. Does it mention he typed it for 10 cents a half hour at UCLA? It offered a lot of insight into his thought process

Beth wrote: "Finished today and stunned. So much to process. The writing was breathtaking. Guy’s character development was painful yet uplifting. I loved [spoilers removed] Many parallels to today, of course, b..."

Don't a lot of people have to read this at school? Not me, but I suspect one of the reasons it has 2.5 million+ ratings on here is not that we're all nostalgic for 1950s dystopianism, but that we remember it from a book report.

Jen wrote: "Beth wrote: "Finished today and stunned. So much to process. The writing was breathtaking. Guy’s character development was painful yet uplifting. I loved [spoilers removed] Many parallels to today,..."

The school I currently teach at did until recently. My daughters school also had them read it. I didn't have to but we read other dystopian stuff instead

I notice he is also referring to consumerism quite a bit. Millie wanting a "4th wall" and his attempt to explain to her that people in other parts of the world were starving while THEY were pursuing stuff that was supposed to bring them happiness and amusement. Another 1950's social issue, consumerism (actually begun in the 20"s and revived post-WW2)

Jen wrote: "At the beginning of the novel, Clarisse says “17 and insane, they go together.“ Does Clarisse mean that the younger ones are usually the ones that fight back, the ones that question the status QUO?..."

Since I first read this at 16, I've always thought it was just that teens tend to do crazier things than adults do, and when I reread it I thought the same. However, I've never read this for any sort of class.

Rosalyn wrote: "just finished Part 1.

I am gobsmacked. every other line is the richest gem of a sentence, i am most definitely going to have to own my own copy so i can tab it up. i particularly liked the part a..."

Rosalyn wrote: "thank you Denise + Jen for your insightful thoughts! i agree, tv is conduit for propoganda, it's certainly easier to consume a visual media rather than quiet your mind enough to sit down and read s..."


It was very common to demonize TV back in the 1950s and 1960s and I would say that there were good points made by it because many people do watch too much of it and many TV shows do use it as platforms for political things, some good, some not so good.

I've removed my diatribe about how TV has changed society--I do own one and watch a bit of TV so am not against them--but the main point of this book was that TV is far more mindless than reading (it is, and that's been proven many times by measuring brain activity) and so it's easier to control what people think. Bear in mind that in the 1950s there were almost no TV channels.

My kids had very strict screen limitations growing up because I have felt strongly about this for many years :) They are all in their 20s now, though.

Denise wrote: "I notice he is also referring to consumerism quite a bit. Millie wanting a "4th wall" and his attempt to explain to her that people in other parts of the world were starving while THEY were pursuin..."

Yes, and our entire economy has continued to be built on consumerism since then, so he was making a valid point (note that I'm typing this on my desktop and everyone in this house owns a laptop plus a cell phone and my desktop is sitting on a special computer table...)

Rosalyn wrote: "thank you Denise + Jen for your insightful thoughts! i agree, tv is conduit for propoganda, it's certainly easier to consume a visual media rather than quiet your mind enough to sit down and read s..."

FYI Faber still makes coloured pencils :)

I'm so pleased people are appreciating this book! It was published the same year my mother first saw a TV when she had to move to Winnipeg to attend high school (she was young as she was skipped a grade). By the time I read it I thought it was old school, but loved it and when I reread it still thought it quite apt.

Finished it. I don't remember the third part at all so maybe I didn't actually finish it the first time.

Anyway....Faber said something in part 2 that was scarily prescient: he says that people gave up books on their own, the "state" didn't take them away. I teach high school, and I teach primarily honors/advanced classes so I have our best and brightest (it is a low income/low skill school , and they will NOT read a book. The won't even read an article for class research. getting them to open the textbook the few times a year I use it is like pulling teeth. This perpetuates the problem of their significant below average reading levels.

They have, as Faber said, voluntarily given up reading books in favor of social media posts and watching videos.

At the end they discuss how people never learn anything from the books. This unfortunately also seems to be true as we keep making the same mistakes over and over as humans.

My copy of the book has an essay by the author at the end where we recounts the irony of the fact that readers write his letters asking him to alter his books and plays to satisfy them, including "include more women", "leave out word X and word Y" etc. He was upset that school reader printed one of his stories but left out two phrases that could be interpreted as religious. He is not wrong that a problem in society today is too many people telling writers what the can and can't writes and trying to pull books from shelves and tell the rest of us what we can or can't read.

Good read. Looking forward to n=reading more comments from fellow readers

Karin wrote: "Denise wrote: "I notice he is also referring to consumerism quite a bit. Millie wanting a "4th wall" and his attempt to explain to her that people in other parts of the world were starving while TH..."

Unfortunately so many jobs are based on people buying, and when we don't or can't buy, jobs are lost. Not to mention the planned obsolescence of so many products to force people to buy upgrades,

Karin wrote: "Rosalyn wrote: "thank you Denise + Jen for your insightful thoughts! i agree, tv is conduit for propoganda, it's certainly easier to consume a visual media rather than quiet your mind enough to sit..."

And good quality ones at that! They are a little pricy but worth it

Captain Beatty quotes history, scripture, poetry, philosophy. He is obviously a well-read man. Why hasn't he been punished? And why does he view the books he's read with such contempt?

I'm also wondering why he isn't punished. In most dystopias, there are different rules for those at the top. Is Beatty close enough that he can own books? Or is it just as Montag experiences, a book opens as he's dousing it and he reads a line and can't forget it?

I'm at the part where Beatty's in Montag's house and giving his monologue about education and books and saying how everything gets dumbed down and instant gratification becomes the sole focus. Books are generally not instantly gratifying, you have to invest time and effort to learn to read them, and even more time and effort to read them at an advanced level. Even then, each book is a 10+ hour commitment on your part and you won't read more than a few thousand of them in your lifetime if you're an extreme reader. This is just after we've seen that Mildred has no idea what she's watching on TV, she doesn't know anyone's name or story. Of course it could just be that Beatty hates books because his society does.

Denise wrote: "Karin wrote: "Denise wrote: "I notice he is also referring to consumerism quite a bit. Millie wanting a "4th wall" and his attempt to explain to her that people in other parts of the world were sta..."

Yes--now that most of the American large appliance companies were brought under one umbrella, washing machines only last 5 years now! I switched to a Speed Queen top loader built for commercial use because it's still separate and the parts and labour warranty is for 5 years. Similar for other appliance, but I'm not sure if they are all 5 years.

Yes, and one of the reasons is because our economy was switched to a consumer one before any of us were born. I just removed way too much writing.

Rosalyn wrote: "thank you Denise + Jen for your insightful thoughts! i agree, tv is conduit for propoganda, it's certainly easier to consume a visual media rather than quiet your mind enough to sit down and read s..."

The easier the form of propaganda is for people to use, the more popular it becomes. Watching TV is much easier than reading. Virtually all TV has propaganda of one type or another for good and for ill; there is no such thing as an unbiased news station, either--people tend to think the ones that match their opinions are unbiased. I say this because I come from an extended family with diverse political beliefs beyond the American 2 party system (most are in Canada, but then there's my husband's family in the States.) My parents supported different federal parties in Canada and have/had friends and family who supported other parties beyond those two. My mother died in 2023, so now it's just my dad for my parents.