He is best remembered for his classic book burning novel Fahrenheit 451, required reading in high schools all over the United States.
I still remember that novel some 40 years after I read it.
Bradbury frequently attempted to shrug out of the narrow "sci-fi" designation, not because he was put off by it, but rather because he believed it was imprecise.
"I'm not a science fiction writer," he was frequently quoted as saying. "I've written only one book of science fiction ["Fahrenheit 451"]. All the others are fantasy. Fantasies are things that can't happen, and science fiction is about things that can happen."
It wasn't merely semantics.
His stories were multi-layered and ambitious. Bradbury was far less concerned with mechanics—how many tanks of fuel it took to get to Mars and with what rocket—than what happened once the crew landed there, or what they would impose on their environment. "He had this flair for getting to really major issues," said Paul Alkon, emeritus professor of English and American literature at USC.
People will still be reading his work a hundred years from now, assuming there are any books or literature left for anybody but the rich. The way things are going in public education, millions may never be able to read at all.
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Kiss the Land of Opportunity stuff goodbye.
Blood on the streets resulting from 30-percent unemployment is the ONLY way the course of this country will be reversed.
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Maybe there's hope for Detroit's schools after all.
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