Fahrenheit 451

Bibliography
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. Ballantine Books, 1953.
image from: amazon.com

Summary (from Shmoop)

Shmoop Editorial Team. "Fahrenheit 451 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 3 Aug. 2017.

My Thoughts
My daughter had to read this for her Pre-Ap English class. As I've never read it, I thought I'd read it with her. That was fun. We decided to try for 13 pages per night so we could finish it by the end of June. We did.

I know that Bradbury was commenting on how societies try to limit people's intellectual thoughts. I know this is a book about censorship. I know it's a classic. I know it's a book set in a dystopia. But, I DID NOT LIKE IT! The text just went on and on and on. I was bored, and so was my daughter. I kept notes as I was reading because I just didn't care to commit it to memory. I also didn't feel engaged with the story. I did see many things that reflect our current society, which made me smirk to think was Bradbury prophetic? But, overall, it's forgettable. I will remember a fireman who burns books. I will think about how a girl helped him question his beliefs. I will not remember much else.

After we finished reading the book, my daughter and I watched the movie (made in 1966). I'd seen the movie years ago and so after reading the book, the movie made sense, but for being "futuristic" this version was dated. I hope for future students, if this book is continued to be studied, a newer movie version will be made.

Feed

Bibliography
Anderson, M. T. Feed. Listening Library. 2003.
image from; audiobooksync.com

Summary (from Audiobooksync.com)
For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon—a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires. Following in the footsteps of George Orwell, Anthony Burgess, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr., M. T. Anderson has created a not-so-brave new world—and a smart, savage satire that will captivate listeners with its view of an imagined future that veers unnervingly close to the here and now.

My Thoughts
OH MY GOODNESS! This was such a timely story! The idea that we have a constant "feed" of information in our brains and how this influences our decisions is spot on! The feed tells them what they want, what they should do and even matches to the personality type. It reinforces the idea the "we deserve it!" The book was futuristic, but is the book prophetic? The book was published in 2002, and much has happened in society since then. We do have a "feed" at our fingertips all of the time--our phones. We are constantly hit with ads/banners. I think this book represents today's generation.

I think this could be a great book for Upward Bound, but there is a bunch of cussing (the main characters are teenagers).

I laughed at many of the abbreviations used in the book. They are funny and telling. Another funny thing I laughed at was when they referred to a certain computer language as a "dead language."

The fear of missing out and the shallowness, vainness of the society is evident in this book.
Violet says, "Because of the feed, we're raising a nation of a bunch of idiots" (Anderson). OH YES!

Schools are run by a corporation. It makes me think about how education is turning. Legislatures dictate policy without having been in the classroom.  The story involved politics that mirror today.

I'd like to see a sequel to this book to delve more into how the characters' lesions fit into the environmental issues raised in the book.

This is a great listen and a story I will recommend to many.