In a future totalitarian state where books are banned and destroyed by the government, Guy Montag, a fireman in charge of burning books, meets a revolutionary schoolteacher who dares to read and a girl who tells him of a past when people did not live in fear.

How would the world look without the influence of Shakespeare pervading so many aspects of life and culture and belief? In a race against time, with the fate of lives and souls hanging in the balance, the forces of good and evil battle to save or destroy Shakespeare’s works. Which side works to which end? That is the question, isn’t it? Would we be better off without Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, and the others, or would the safety valve...

Montag, a regimented fireman in charge of burning the forbidden volumes, meets a revolutionary school teacher who dares to read. Suddenly he finds himself a hunted fugitive, forced to choose not only between two women, but between personal safety and intellectual freedom

Opening with the notorious bonfires of "un-German" and Jewish literature in 1933 that offered such a clear signal of Nazi intentions, Burning the Books takes us on a 3000-year journey through the destruction of knowledge and the fight against all the odds to preserve it. Richard Ovenden, director of the world-famous Bodleian Library, explains how attacks on libraries and archives have been a feature of history since ancient times but have increased...