256 Pages
Published September 2017 by Flatiron Books
Publisher's Summary:
If you love to read, and presumably you do since you’ve picked up this book (!), you know that some books affect you so profoundly they forever change the way you think about the world. Some books, on the other hand, disappoint you so much you want to throw them against the wall. Either way, it’s clear that a book can be your new soul mate or the bad relationship you need to end.In Dear Fahrenheit 451, librarian Annie Spence has crafted love letters and breakup notes to the iconic and eclectic books she has encountered over the years. From breaking up with The Giving Tree (a dysfunctional relationship book if ever there was one), to her love letter to The Time Traveler’s Wife (a novel less about time travel and more about the life of a marriage, with all of its ups and downs), Spence will make you think of old favorites in a new way. Filled with suggested reading lists, Spence’s take on classic and contemporary books is very much like the best of literature—sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes surprisingly poignant, and filled with universal truths.
A celebration of reading, Dear Fahrenheit 451 is for anyone who loves nothing more than curling up with a good book…and another, and another, and another!
My Thoughts:
"When people say books are full of wonder, we don't take it seriously enough."
This one was recommended for my book club and I worked and worked on finding a theme for the year that would work to include it. Finally I hit on the idea of a book that represents something about each month and for February it was love - in this case love letters to books. I was expecting a book full of letters to books that Spence has loved through her life and I felt certain that I would have enjoyed that book. But this book is so much more.
Dear Fahrenheit 451 is funny, snarky, political, and, unexpectedly, a bit naughty (which, honestly, makes me love librarians even more). Spence writes letters to books she loves, books that she is culling from collections (including a book about masturbation and a recipe book filled with recipes for popcorn), and even a book collection in a person's home that she becomes a little too involved with. There is more here, though, than just the letters. Spence also includes lists of books for readers who want particular kinds of books and recommendations for people who say they don't like or have time to read.
To Dr. Seuss' Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories, Spence writes about how the book saved her on the playground, when she saw it sticking out of another outcast parent's diaper bag and likens that playground hierarchy to the one in the book.
"Since your release in 1950, you may have assumed fascism was dead, but you need only look around this lot of tyrant tots and their proud parents to see that no everyone absorbed your line about all creatures being free. While the parents at the top of the proverbial turtle heap discuss min-body connections and preschool plans on the shady benches, I'm down the throne on the broiling-hot-covered-in-bird-sh&# bench, whipping sand out of my crying child's eyes with the bottom of my T-shirt."
Most of all this book is a love letter to the idea of books. What they make us feel, how they make us think, and what they represent to society:
"Dear Fahrenheit 451,Don't ever change. And stay here with us, always, You were created in a library, and I'm comforted by the fact art you'll remain on library shelves around the world. If we ever get to a point where you're not included in the core of a book collection, we're all f*^#ed...Some days the world feels closer to that point than I'm comfortable with. Be glad you have a voice but no eyes. Since 1953, the talking walls are bigger and louder than ever. The modern-day "firefighters" are armed not with kerosene but snarky internet memes, reality TV, and the ability to simultaneously see more and less of the world around them."
So many books here that I haven't read...yet. Thanks, Spence, for the recommendations and the reminder that libraries are great places and that librarians are cool.
I had to comment because Fahrenheit 451 is one of my FAVORITES. I had to read it in high school and thought it would be SO boring but I absolutely love it. That and The Crucible, those two from high school made me a reader. :)
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