AUDIOBOOK

Fahrenheit 451

A Novel

Ray Bradbury
5
(1)
Duration
4h 48m
Year
2025
Language
English

About

A new recording of Ray Bradbury's timeless classic Fahrenheit 451 narrated by Penn Badgley!

Nearly seventy years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury's internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before.

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family." But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn't live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) was the author of more than three dozen books, including Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and Something Wicked This Way Comes, as well as hundreds of short stories. He wrote for the theater, cinema, and TV, including the screenplay for John Huston's Moby Dick and the Emmy Award–winning teleplay The Halloween Tree, and adapted for television sixty-five of his stories for The Ray Bradbury Theater. He was the recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, and numerous other honors.

Penn Badgley is an actor, director, producer, writer, and podcaster best known for his starring roles in the CW's Gossip Girl and Netflix's You. He lives in New Paltz, New York, with his wife, two children, and two dogs. "Like many sci-fi authors, Bradbury predicted many of today's less admirable achievements, such as earbuds and huge TVs. So not surprisingly, this 1953 title is timeless. Penn Badgley, pleasant-voiced and convincing, is an outstanding narrator. His tone resonates with personality, and his subtle character shifts are effective, especially as he portrays this novel's antihero, a fireman whose job is to burn books. Badgley's pace is quick yet easy to follow. Even longer monologues are clearly phrased. He can offer a warm observation one minute and turn into a cold commentator the next, skillfully making Bradbury's message accessible. At one point, exhorting the protagonist to actively embrace life, one character says, "Stuff your eyes with wonder." This audiobook invites you to do the same with your ears."

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Like many sci-fi authors, Bradbury predicted many of today's less admirable achievements, such as earbuds and huge TVs. So not surprisingly, this 1953 title is timeless. Penn Badgley, pleasant-voiced and convincing, is an outstanding narrator. His tone resonates with personality, and his subtle character shifts are effective, especially as he portrays this novel's antihero, a fireman whose job is
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