Fahrenheit 451

How it reads

Fahrenheit 451 is science fiction (dystopian science fiction, specifically), and its dominant mood is dark. It goes to difficult places and doesn't look away. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.

It's set in a big city setting, in the future, told in the third person, staying close to one character. Its central concerns are power and politics, identity and class and society. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending resolves happily. At 158 pages it's a single-sitting book. It's a mega-bestseller — the book everyone seems to have read.