Bookwi.se

Takeaway: Society has a responsibility for its own maintenance.

Unlike most of the rest of the world, I did not read Fahrenheit 451 in high school.  (I didn’t read most books that people seem to have read in high school.)

The story is set in the near future (written in 1953, but still feels near future.)  Guy Montag is a fireman.  In a world where all the homes are fireproof, it is firemen’s jobs to set fires, not put them out.  When people are found to have illegal books, it is the firemen’s job to burn the houses including the books after the people have been arrested.

After Guy meets and begins a friendship with 17 year old free thinking Clarisse, he starts questioning his life. Eventually he steals some of the books he is supposed to be burning and reads them.  He starts questioning society and why no one reads or remembers.  (Part of the subtext is that there is always noise and video and pictures so that people no longer want to read.)

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The essay, in which a writer has ample space–but not too much–to meander across seemingly unrelated topics before eventually drawing them together with whatever connection initially struck him, is a wonderful medium full of rich opportunity for reflection. Alan Jacobs is one of my favorite writers, and he is at his best when writing essays. Jacobs is the kind of writer and thinker who always makes me feel smarter, more contemplative, and broader-minded than I was before I picked him up. He does this as a professional academic, but without sounding like one. His tastes range from the modern “penny dreadful” to the high forms of ancient literature–and, to his credit, unabashedly so. His thoughts are as profound as they are genuine and unpretentious. And this collection was glorious.

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In an alternate version of the sixteenth century the world is flat, its outer edges still unexplored. An ambitious alchemist, a boundary-pushing doctor and his daughter, a ship-load of Protestant refugees, and some stowaway mythical creatures set sail for the legendary island of Horizon on the outer rim of the earth. Some are looking for treasure, others for religious freedom, and still others for immortality. They are pursued by a Roman Catholic inquisitor (persecutor) and representatives from the British crown who want to ensure the treasure returns to England.

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