Originally published in 1953 and more relevant today than ever, Ray Bradbury's masterpiece Fahrenheit 451 is now the centerpiece of St. Louis' participation in The Big Read, an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. In the novel, Bradbury creates a sobering outlook of the future, in which firemen actually start fires in order to burn books. Bradbury's society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal-a place where trivial information is good and knowledge and ideas are bad. By contrast, during the Big Read, sponsored in St. Louis by Washington University, the public will have the opportunity to explore Fahrenheit 451's provocative and important themes in depth through a wide variety of February events. These events include community-wide lectures, readings, art exhibits, theater productions, book discussion groups, film festivals, and a unique series of interactive videoconferences.
