This sounds like an absolutely marvelous book, and I'm surprised I've never heard of it. I'm off to purchase it right now, thanks!

There are so many things I could comment on, but I'll go with perhaps the least obvious one:

I'm really tired of this tendency to ban books. Book banning is hitting new heights in the United States right now. Books by and about Black people and queer people are disappearing rapidly from library shelves.

In my latest story, I mentioned as an aside that the American Library Association just released data showing that book bans have spread from school libraries to public libraries, with the number of banned books in public libraries now almost equaling the number of banned books in school libraries.

And the reasoning is always similar. Protect the children. Protect the children from learning, knowing, acquiring wisdom. Protect them from the truth, I guess.

I don't understand this. I don't understand it even a little bit.

I raised a child. I didn't try to stop him from knowing true things about the world he lives in. I try to wrap my mind around why parents would want to try to stop their children from knowing true things about the world they live in, but I can't wrap my mind around it.

When I read Fahrenheit 451 as a science-fiction loving child, I took it as hypothetical allegory, thinking that we Americans so love our freedom of the press that we could never, ever consider banning books.

I did not know then that book banning has deep American roots.

But today, book banning is more popular and prevalent than it ever was. So many of my fellow Americans praise book banning as necessary and good.

And Fahrenheit 451?

It frequently makes appearances on lists of books parents (like the Orwellian-named Moms for Liberty. Liberty, my hairy gay ass!) want gone from school libraries and even public libraries.