Big Read: Whitefish to host month of 'Fahrenheit 451' reading events

“We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?”

— Ray Bradbury, “Fahrenheit 451”

In October, the Whitefish community will let itself be bothered by Ray Bradbury’s now classic novel of a dystopian America that has outlawed books.

Whitefish Theatre Co., together with its partners Whitefish Community Library and the Whitefish School District, has received a Big Read grant to promote reading as the cultural heartbeat of the community.

The grant is one of 78 awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts to provide communities with the opportunity to spend a month immersed in a great book. The grant will assist in promoting and carrying out community-based reading programs featuring activities such as book discussions, movie screenings, speakers and performing arts events.

In Whitefish, those events will all center around “Fahrenheit 451,” which Bradbury published in 1953. The novel takes materials of pulp fiction and transforms them into a visionary parable of a society gone awry.

More relevant than ever a half-century later, “Fahrenheit 451” has achieved the distinction of becoming both a literary classic and a perennial best seller.

The Big Read kickoff event is Oct. 5 at Whitefish Community Library. Other events throughout the month include lectures about freedom of speech and robots, and a Black Curtain Readers Theatre production of “Lombardi.”

To volunteer or for additional information, call Whitefish Theatre Co. at 862-5371 or email Carolyn Pitman at carolyn@whitefishtheatreco.org.

For more information about the Big Read, visit www.neabigread.org.