Does this book get translated as "Centrigrade[or Celsius] 233" for the rest of the world...?!!

I first read this book in junior high school eons ago and had forgotten how powerful this book is. Now as I am re-reading it I find myself pondering our sense of community and self in the 21st century. In fact the book makes me confront myself and the coldness that can creep into our lives when we lose touch with "nature". The past few days while reading this book I have found that I wonder more about my values and the time I spend with ideas vs. the consumer aspect of my life.

This is a powerful and special book written in a very simple and stark style that will stay with me for some time to come.

I picked this up from a tabletop in Starbucks in North Bend. I am 41 and managed, somehow, to skip this book in high school. Too bad I did.

I really did enjoy this book and thought that Mr. Bradbury's future was amazingly similar to what we have today, as far as technology goes. The social aspect isn't too far off either. And how I would love to speed my car along the highway at 120mph!!!

Anyway, while there may have been some areas of minutia that I skimmed over, that didn't occur very often. I was quite captivated by the book. I guess I liked the third act best. I am more action oriented. I didn't know that Montag was the name of a paper company, but I did know that Faber was a pencil company (I didn't realize it when I read the novel, but in the Afterword, RB pointed it out). Anyway, good book. Nice "big brother" representation.

Thanks for the thoughtful comment. the thing that really strikes me about the technology in this book is the way Bradbury envisioned a future in 1951, (when the book was written) that so closely parallels our own current reality. (Ipod/MySpace, plasma screen TV's).

The on-going war in the background was an element I didn't really remember from reading it in high school in the 60's. It truly resonanted with me this time when I re-read it.

I've been encouraging people who say they read it once before, (when they were younger) to read it again. The experience is truly different as you get older.

I focused on British literature in high school and college, so I never had the chance to read this book. I'm so glad I did now!

I want to share Bradbury's work with everyone I know. When I read, I like to write down my favorite quotes. This book inspires me to write those amazing pulled quotes anywhere I can, as in the movie "Amelie." Since I don't think graffiti is the best option, I've posted several of them in my blog instead.

In conversations with my friends, I find myself asking them "If you had to memorize one book, or a chapter of one book, what would you choose?"

So I ask you, Bradbury readers, what would YOU choose?

"I want to see everything now. And while none of it will be me when it goes in, after a while it'll all gather together inside me and it'll be me. Look at the world out there, my God, my God, look at it out there, outside me, out there beyond my face and the only way to really touch it is to put it where it's finally me, where it's in the blood, where it pumps around a thousand times ten thousand a day. I get hold of it so it'll never run off. I'll hold onto the world tight someday. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning." - Montag