Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

At 08:47 AM 9/4/97 -0400, Brian B. Riley wrote:

...

in the process of rereading "Fahrenheit 451" - the recent printing of this in paperback features a Marquis that says somethig like "Now, more relevant than ever" - as much as I hate having someone else tell me what to think ... they certainly seem to be right. It has been over twenty

BTW, the last copy of F451 I saw really irked me - the cover had explanatory notes like "Fahrenheit 451, the temperature that books burn!" and stuff about firemen whose job is setting fires. Are today's kids dumbing down, or less literate, or is it just enough longer since the book was written that publishers need to try harder to get people to read it?

Any day, I expect to hear that The State has mandated that all first editions of F451 be confiscated and landfilled. Why? Whatever the true motives, the one they will cite is "public safety": the first (hardback) edition is bound in asbestos. trei@process.com