I have this book on my bookshelf.... but I am ashamed to admit I have yet to read it due to the intensity of it. (Yes, it was required school reading but I was sick when they read it) I will pick it up someday, but unsure when.
What are you thought's on this book? I know it's iconic as hell for obvious reasons, and the irony of banning it is honestly quite funny.
Per Wikipedia:
In the years since its publication, Fahrenheit 451 has occasionally been banned, censored, or redacted in some schools at the behest of parents or teaching staff either unaware of or indifferent to the inherent irony in such censorship. Notable incidents include:
- In Apartheid South Africa the book was burned along with thousands of banned publications between the 1950s and 1970s.[77]
- In 1987, Fahrenheit 451 was given "third tier" status by the Bay County School Board in Panama City, Florida, under then-superintendent Leonard Hall's new three-tier classification system. Third tier was meant for books to be removed from the classroom for "a lot of vulgarity". After a resident class-action lawsuit, a media stir, and student protests, the school board abandoned their tier-based censorship system and approved all the currently used books.[78]
- In 1992, Venado Middle School in Irvine, California, gave copies of Fahrenheit 451 to students with all "obscene" words blacked out.[79] Parents contacted the local media and succeeded in reinstalling the uncensored copies.[79]
- In 2006, parents of a 10th-grade high school student in Montgomery County, Texas, demanded the book be banned from their daughter's English class reading list.[80] Their daughter was assigned the book during Banned Books Week, but stopped reading several pages in due to what she considered the offensive language and description of the burning of the Bible. In addition, the parents protested the violence, portrayal of Christians, and depictions of firemen in the novel.[80]
