One of the books which had the greatest effect on me in my teens was Fahrenheit 451 and I still recommend everyone read it (along with Clockwork Orange, Brave New World, 1984 and Animal Farm). In some ways Fahrenheit 451 seems to have the greatest relevance to our time.

The prediction of a world where we are controlled by vacuous media and books are burned to deny people the knowledge required to question authority seems to parallel our click bait and reality TV dominated world.

However, in the most fundamental way I would argue that Fahrenheit 451 got things wrong. Continue reading →