![]() “ Fahrenheit 451” contains a passage that explains why books are sometimes hated and feared: “They show the pores in the face of life.” ![]() Just last year, legislators in Randolph County North Carolina elected to ban Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” from school libraries, but then reversed that decision amidst popular protest. Between 19, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” was still the fifth most requested banned book. Ironically, “ Fahrenheit 451” was among the top 100 banned/challenged books between 20 according to the website for the Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association.īooks that are among the most often banned are far from the most vapid, violent, or lascivious of the best sellers, but instead often run against the grain of bigotry and hypocrisy and they challenge mainstream comfort. It harkens a week that we acknowledge each September: Banned Books Week. I’ll avoid any spoilers, but if you missed this Orwellian-like classic, put it on your reading list and if you have already read it, put it on your list to revisit.īradbury wrote “Fahrenheit 451” during the McCarthy era, when books and the ideas they contained were often under siege. In this bizarro-world, books are not only not sacred and not revered, but they are banned, outlawed, and burned. Most creepy are the firemen whose jobs are to set books, and the houses that harbor them, ablaze. (Perhaps Bradbury had a prescient vision of modern reality-TV?) Home entertainment screens are ensconced on two, three, and sometimes all four walls, where zombie-like viewers read tidbits from canned scripts that make them feel that they are truly a part of the show. ![]() Medics hustle from home-to-home and nonchalantly pump stomachs and detoxify blood of the afflicted―treating their symptoms, but not the disease. In this eerie place, overdoses, driven by despair, are epidemic. You won’t find any typical ghouls, but instead, human beings who precariously teeter in the grips of a culture gone mad. I challenge you to read Bram Stoker’s 1897 “Dracula,” and then turn out the lights.ĭespite these noteworthy chillers, “ Fahrenheit 451,” written by sci-fi master Ray Bradbury, is at the top of my list of haunting books. “The Raven” may still give you goose bumps and, Perhaps you read “Psycho,” the novel ( later made into the epic Hitchcock film), Stephen King’s fans swear it’s “Pet Sematary” or “The Shining,” What is the scariest book you’ve ever read?
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