meganmreads's review against another edition
5.0
This book was amazing. Like all the other Bradbury works I’ve read before, it is well written and creative. I have to gush about the beautiful cover. While similar to the cover of Fahrenheit 451, the different shades of blue and green and purple are gorgeous. I absolutely love this cover.
Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favorite books, so when my husband came home with A Pleasure to Burn in hand for me, I was excited. This collection of short stories are part of the origin and evolution of Fahrenheit 451. I expected to see many parallels and I did. What I didn’t expect was to see parallels with some of his other works, such as the Martian Chronicles. This was surprising and delightful. The short stories are all equally interesting, creative, and well written.
My favorite thing about this book is the way it is laid out. It begins with a few short stories that I feel lead up to the meat of the book, the two novellas Long After Midnight and The Fireman. Then, it ends with two more short stories. It reminded me of a meal, starting with an appetizer, then the main course, and a wonderful dessert. It couldn’t have been organized better.
While I’m a fan of both Fahrenheit 451 and Ray Bradbury in general, I won’t pretend to know all there is to know about him and his works. I enjoy his writing. I don’t know what exactly prompted him to write Fahrenheit 451, but I enjoyed seeing ideas unfold in this collection. From civilizations that burn the dead to trash collectors changing from their regular jobs to clean up corpses, from worlds in which it is strange to walk the streets to bugs inside the houses of regular people, so many of the prominent ideas in Fahrenheit 451 are seen in many of these short stories.
Any fan of Fahrenheit 451 or Ray Bradbury’s short stories will enjoy this collection.
http://meganm922.blogspot.com/2012/06/reviewa-pleasure-to-burn-by-ray.html
Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favorite books, so when my husband came home with A Pleasure to Burn in hand for me, I was excited. This collection of short stories are part of the origin and evolution of Fahrenheit 451. I expected to see many parallels and I did. What I didn’t expect was to see parallels with some of his other works, such as the Martian Chronicles. This was surprising and delightful. The short stories are all equally interesting, creative, and well written.
My favorite thing about this book is the way it is laid out. It begins with a few short stories that I feel lead up to the meat of the book, the two novellas Long After Midnight and The Fireman. Then, it ends with two more short stories. It reminded me of a meal, starting with an appetizer, then the main course, and a wonderful dessert. It couldn’t have been organized better.
While I’m a fan of both Fahrenheit 451 and Ray Bradbury in general, I won’t pretend to know all there is to know about him and his works. I enjoy his writing. I don’t know what exactly prompted him to write Fahrenheit 451, but I enjoyed seeing ideas unfold in this collection. From civilizations that burn the dead to trash collectors changing from their regular jobs to clean up corpses, from worlds in which it is strange to walk the streets to bugs inside the houses of regular people, so many of the prominent ideas in Fahrenheit 451 are seen in many of these short stories.
Any fan of Fahrenheit 451 or Ray Bradbury’s short stories will enjoy this collection.
http://meganm922.blogspot.com/2012/06/reviewa-pleasure-to-burn-by-ray.html
erichart's review against another edition
4.0
This should be a five-star book, collecting stories in which Bradbury developed the themes he would exlpore in his masterpiece Fahrenheit 451. I have to deduct one star from the lazy editing. The stories are collected with no notes or publication history, no context at all. Some form of commentary is desperately needed in order to place theses stories in relation to Fahrenheit 451. A similar collection, Match to Flame, apparently offers some notes.
numbat's review against another edition
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
rayn0n's review against another edition
2.0
A few of the short stories I hadn't read in his other anthologies and I enjoyed, but the re-writes of Fahrenheit 451 were more than a little disappointing. I was expecting more of a conceptual exploration of the characters based on the description I got from the afterword of the original book, but it was really just a worse rewrite of the book (with the obvious exception of "the Fireman" which was, in fact, the predecessor to the novel and is therefore excluded from that assessment).
Was hoping for some unique insight into the characters in Bradbury's exceptional style. Got a Montag whose anger was on the edge of disturbingly competent compared to the Fahrenheit 452 novel, where "I don't know what I'm doing" paired well with his anger and sincerity to make him really relatable. In this version (Long After Midnight) he's just an unhinged entitled sociopath.
Was hoping for some unique insight into the characters in Bradbury's exceptional style. Got a Montag whose anger was on the edge of disturbingly competent compared to the Fahrenheit 452 novel, where "I don't know what I'm doing" paired well with his anger and sincerity to make him really relatable. In this version (Long After Midnight) he's just an unhinged entitled sociopath.
shiprim's review against another edition
5.0
Aslında sevgili Bradbury ve İthaki Yayınları'nın ufak bir oyunu bize bu kitap, zira içinde Mars Yıllıkları'ndan da, Resimli Adam'dan da öyküler var. Ama okunmamış öyküler de var yine de. Ve okunmamış Bradbury öyküsü için bile değer. Ayrıca Fahrenheit 451'e giden yolda yazdıklarını da okuyarak o ulvi romanı toplamda on kez falan okumuş oldum ister istemez.
<<"Bay Garrett" diye seslendi Stendahl usulca. Garrett susmaya zorladı kendini. "Bay Garrett," dedi Stendahl bir kez daha. "Bunu size neden yaptığımı biliyor musunuz? Çünkü siz Bay Poe'nun kitaplarını hiç okumadan yaktınız. Başkaları size onların yakılması gerekiğini söyledi, siz de onlara inandınız. Öyle yapmamış olsaydınız, biraz önce buraya geldiğimizde ne yapmak istediğimi anlardınız. Cehalet, Bay Garrett, ölüm getirir.>>
<<"Bay Garrett" diye seslendi Stendahl usulca. Garrett susmaya zorladı kendini. "Bay Garrett," dedi Stendahl bir kez daha. "Bunu size neden yaptığımı biliyor musunuz? Çünkü siz Bay Poe'nun kitaplarını hiç okumadan yaktınız. Başkaları size onların yakılması gerekiğini söyledi, siz de onlara inandınız. Öyle yapmamış olsaydınız, biraz önce buraya geldiğimizde ne yapmak istediğimi anlardınız. Cehalet, Bay Garrett, ölüm getirir.>>
ambermarshall's review against another edition
4.0
Nothing much to say in particular, except that it was interesting to see what were essentially his "rough drafts" of Fahrenheit 451. I think the novel turned out much better than the two stories. Some of the other stories had fairly tenuous connection to Fahrenheit 451 (if it took place in a future where books had been burned, even if that wasn't the main focus of the story, it went in) and some of the stories are in other collections, like The Illustrated Man, but it's a good handful of classic Bradbury sci-fi with a good mix of hopeful and cynical outlook on the future.
monstrouscosmos's review
gonna go with "largely meh". I just never got interested in what was going on.
graciegrace1178's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
4.0
3.89 stars (rounded up)
WOWOWOWOW! A look into Bradbury's thought process surrounding F451! NEAT.
WOWOWOWOW! A look into Bradbury's thought process surrounding F451! NEAT.