NEA’s Big Read Comes To Dallas In April 2013 Thanks To The Friends Of The Dallas Public Library And D Academy

When the late Ray Bradbury published his Fahrenheit 451 in 1953, many thought it was the novelist’s argument against censorship and the atrocity of the Joe McCarthy era. After all it was about a future world in which books were gathered up and burned by “firemen.”

Eventually the author fessed up admitting the story actually dealt with his fear that the new technology of television would result in people not reading. Even back in the 50′s, Bradbury predicted that TV would dumb down people. Remember this was when households had maybe one TV, the images were in black and white and there was no such thing as a remote control.

In 1966 the late French director François Truffaut made a movie that appeared in “art houses” starring a luscious Julie Christie and Oskar Werner.

Now in this day of 3D televisions, the Friends of the Dallas Public Library and D Academy (D Magazine‘s new leadership development program) have received one of 78 grants from the National Endowment for the Arts to host The Big Read during April 2013.

“I’m so pleased that out of 1,500 cities that applied Dallas is one of the 78 recipients of the National Endowment for the Arts’ Big Read grant,” said FoDPL Board Chair Pam Meyercord. “It is an enormous honor and will be a wonderful opportunity for the community to unite by reading a great book in April 2013. We are proud to bring The Big Read back to Dallas.”

With the 60th anniversary of Fahrenheit as its centerpiece, The Big Read will promote the reading, discussion and celebration of the Bradbury novel via book discussions, lectures, movie screenings, street festivals and performing arts events.

PS — Check some of the links in this post, especially the interviews with Bradbury.