I am planning on reading this next so that I can discuss it in the Feb. 2005 Bookworms_Reading_Group discussion, and the March 2004 comeheretoread discussion, both on yahoo. I will post again after I read it.

I finished this book yesterday but will journal again tomorrow after I have gotten all my thoughts together on the book.

This book is now going to be traveling in a bookring! If interested, please feel free to PM me with your location and shipping preferences. Please only express interest if you will be able to turn the book around within 3 weeks.

SHIPPING ORDER

~~ROUND ONE~~
1. surfenkitten (LA, USA) ***
2. ToXiCKiTTiKiSS (CA, USA) **
3. carolyn81 (MD, USA) ***
4. tyvmdear
5. verenka (Vienna, Austria) ***
6. martinburo (Germany) ***
7. KathyS (UK) *** ~~HAS THE BOOK~~
8. hannahsc5 (CAN) **
9. BookwormJudy (IL, USA) *

~~ROUND TWO~~
1. Flakes (IL,USA) ***
2. syrin (Portugal) **
3. cristina-m (Portugal) ***
4. lady-anglophile (Kuwait) ***
5. timollie5502 (USA) *
6. kab113 (OH, USA) ***

*Will ship in home region
**Will ship internationally but prefers home region
***Will ship internationally

I sent this book off to surfenkitten late last week. I hope you get it soon and get as much out of it as I did!

finished last night....i have to say i was a bit disappointed. i had been looking forward to reading it b/c i loved Bradbury's "Wonderful Ice Cream Suit" play and "The Veldt" one-act play. but i'm not a huge fan of sci-fi from this time period, mostly because it's always "dark" (specifically in imagery...see brave new world, 1984, clockwork orange, etc.) this one is more dark because all of it takes place at night! its hot too, b/c of all the fire, but it provided a neat contrast. i may have had to read a bit more in depth in the first chapter, but the idea of people walking around with books in their head caught me! how cool would that be! any time you wanted a quote from dickens, or thoreau, just find the right people ;)

the idea of censorship is pretty real though; to me especially, this translates into how, more and more, the public is becoming more and more tolerant of negative images in the media (violence, sex, war, etc.) but has become unbelievably strict when it comes to more positive things (prayer, for example, and traditional values). i don't think we have to worry about offending people so much that books would be banned though; many people seem to secretly revel in being offended nowadays. (see the jerry springer show, and over the next few months, the presidential election....)

this edition is the 50th anniversary edition (good choice kim!) and so specially (?) includes an afterword and a coda, both of which helped me understand a bit more. the coda, in particular, was awesome! about censorship.

just my 2--er, well maybe 20--cents; hope i don't ruin it for anyone lol. would like to read it again, maybe, but....no time now! off to toxickittikiss! will probably mail on monday.

Thanks for sending me this. I cannot wait to read it.

This book was better reading the second time then the first. The first time I read it was in school so there was plenty of skipped parts. During the second part I couldn't stop thinking of the symbolism of every piece of the book because of my teacher. It was a great read to me though. This is a great copy of the book and it was enjoyable. I couldn't stop reading it even though I already knew things. The second time around though I recieved answers to all my questions from the first time I read it. It was a great read. Thanks for letting me read it. Will be sending to carolyn81 as soon as I can. =D

Received in the mail today. I have two bookrings ahead of this one, but will get to it by the end of next week.
Will journal again when finished.

Thanks for sharing this book.

***UPDATE*** June 26th, 2004

Started reading today.

A Challenged book:

Ironically, students at the Venado Middle School in Irvine, Calif. received copies of the book with scores of words--mostly "hells" and "damns"--blacked out. The novel is about book burning and censorship. Thankfully, after receiving complaints from parents and being contacted by reporters, school officials said the censored copies would no longer be used (1992).

First off, thank you for sharing this book.

I read this about 20 yrs ago when I was in highschool, so this is a re-read for me.

I think this is a good example of age perception. I loved this book as a teenager but now I find it a bite weak.

The story was a bite erratic and a tad boring. I had a real hard time getting into this book.

I must point out that the story concept/idea is very important and a very very scary. To think that BOOKS are outlawed and that firemen START fires instead of putting them out.

I hope this isn't something in our futures ; (

I will send it on to verenka tomorrow (I already have the address).

Mailed today.

I hope it gets there in a timely manner.

It arrived in the mail today, I will start reading it tomorrow. I'm looking very much forward to it, it's a classic I've always meant to read but never have gotten around to.
Thank you, kab113, for sharing!

I'm pretty tired right now, so i hope, i don`t make too many mistakes.

First of all: the book was a lot more than I expected. I knew a little bit about the story before I started to read, but it managed to surprise and impress me.
The biggest surprise was the moment, when Montag is told that books were no longer bought, long before they were forbidden and the official bookburning begun. What was downright scary, I thought, was the parallels of Beatty's speech on the history of book burning and how they started to get shorten, digest, summarize books and what Bradbury mentions in the coda about the anthology of short stories for which he was asked to contribute.
I immediately thought:"Typical American!", but when I stopped to think about it for a minute, it`s at least just as bad on the German speaking book market. I mean, I don`t even know what is edited away in a German translation of an originally english book in order to make the book better suitable for the German speaking market. And there is a thin line between translating a book so that Germans will understand it, too and changing the words here and there, so that no minority will be offended and censorship.

This story is definitely a timeless classic, actual today as it was when it was written. I also enjoyed reading a bit of background info in the afterword, the coda and interview, although I must say that the language was challenging, for a non-native-speaker like me.

Released on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 at Post Office in By Post, By Post Controlled Releases.

Will be released tomorrow at the post office. Should arrive at martinburo's within the next 10 days or so.

10 Days, yes, are you clairvoyant, verenka? Since this is a thin book, I will probably read it this weekend.

The book itself is nice, and an interesting comment on the temptation to give the responsibility of your life to someone else. However, I completely disagree with the coda. RB talks about artistic freedom and external censorship. For instance, all the main characters in the novel are men, and the women are emptyheaded creatures who sit in front of the television. RB complains that people have complained about this. The nerve! Where is RB's own responsibility? Artistic freedom can never ever mean to limit the freedom of others, to force them into roles by consistently portraying them in those roles. Surely, this is not an isolated instance, but a giving away of his responsibility to the patriarchal society. RB gives another example: that a black has objected to the limited role of blacks in his novels, while a white from the Southern USA objected that their role is too big. And he concludes that he it's obviously impossible to cater to the sensitivities of every minority. Exactly. He should have read his own novel. It's all about choices, and if you hide and refuse to deal with an issue, that doesn't mean you have stayed neutral, but that you have given your power to the status quo, given away your responsibility. There is nothing in the afterword, coda, and interview to suggest that RB has learned this lesson from his own book. Incomprehensible.
I will send this on tomorrow or the day after.

Arrived this morning, along with another ring book. As this is the smaller of the two, this will probably be read first :o)

Thanks for sharing :o)

This was my first encounter with this book and I enjoyed the experience, even though I found the theme quite disturbing.

It seems that Bradbury's futuristic novel, penned in the 1950's, is as relevant today as it ever was. With ever more television channels showing more and more "reality shows" on huge flatscreen TVs, we are all turning into Mildred and accepting these contestants into our homes and our families while spending less and less time communicating with our own family.

Obviously, a world without books is a horrific thought to an avid bookworm but I'm sure that this is less likely to happen with BookCrossing spreading literature throughout the world, ensuring that books are brought to the attention of non-readers on a daily basis.

Tangledthreads was due to receive this next but has managed to read another copy so it will now be heading on to hannahsc5 in Canada instead.

RELEASE NOTES:

Sent airmail. Hope it arrives safely :o)