This book was on my list of 'important books I somehow did not read before now'. It is such a cultural reference point that one assumes everyone has read it, but I suspect that although most people understand the title (the point at which books burn), they may be like me and have not bothered to actually pick it up.

It is reminiscent of Atwood's 'Handmaid's Tale', and falls into that category of 'futurology' that edges on Sci-Fi because by necessity it must speculate about how the future will work, but is really a different genre. Like Atwood's work, It is more concerned with how society may work in future, rather than how machines will work. That said, it is astonishingly prescient when the book does speculate, for instance the mechanical hound and the interactive entertainment screens.

As it is a novel depicting dystopia, one naturally wishes to locate it in the 1984-BNW continuum. Orwell’s 1984 suggests we will be destroyed by what we fear, whereas Huxley’s Brave New World proposes that we will be imprisoned by what we love. Bradbury’s book veers towards Huxley, in so far as society is kept quiescent by consumerism and entertainment, whilst it is also kept in a cage of enforced (and heavily policed) ignorance.

It is a short book, a gripping read, and well worth making the effort. As a warning about the dangers to society of indulging ignorance and celebrating bland superficiality, It is still fresh and relevant.