A science fiction classic, “Fahrenheit 451” remains as relevant today as it did when written during the era of McCarthyism in the early 1950s. The novel’s main character, Guy Montag, is a fireman who burns books, which are illegal in this near future dystopia. Montag’s occupation isn’t all that different from many in the United States’ current administration, which aims to metaphorically burn down educational institutions and intellectualism. Montag’s wife, Mildred, spends all day watching her television “family,” addicted to them in much the same way that today’s Americans – especially the young – are glued to their smartphone screens watching pointless videos of people performing idiotic acts. People in Montag’s society live in fear of the government, just as today so many Americans live in fear of being arrested and disappearing for months in ICE detention camps. There is hope, though, in the form of an eccentric neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces Montag to a brighter past where people lived safely and where the ideas in books helped them to see the world in new ways. People such as Clarisse exist today and are our greatest hope for a brighter future. Get this book for anyone who thinks school and intellectualism is dumb, whose eyes are constantly glued to smartphones, to those who think what ICE is doing is hunky dory, and to anyone who despises what is happening in America and is rapidly losing hope for our future. Maybe it will change just one of their lives. America in the 1950s overcame McCarthyism – a political approach taken to a whole new level by the current White House – and by circulating “Fahrenheit 451” and books like it, we shall overcome it again.

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