Adult

Fahrenheit 451, the 1953 reincarnation of "The Fire Man," presents ideas that are far more complex than that brief description indicates. This novel is a soothsayer, warning of a future populated by non-readers and non-thinkers; a lost people with no sense of their history. At the same time it salutes those who dedicate their lives to the preservation and passing on of knowledge, and testifies to the quiet or passionate courage of the rebel with a cause. Fahrenheit also poses questions about the role(s) of government: Should it reflect the will of the people? Should government do the people's thinking for them?

Charley is constantly forced to choose between his divorced parents. Until one fateful weekend when he leaves his mother to secretly be with his father, and she dies while he is gone. Charley is haunted for years, his own young family unravels, and one night he decides to take his life. But somewhere between this world and the next he encounters his mother and gets to spend one last day with her.