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countdown to the
2nd Annual Bradbury ReadathonThis presentation of
Fahrenheit 451 will be available for 2 weeks only on social media - starting at 1:30 PST/4:30 EDT from August 22 - September 5, 2020 |
Alley Mills Bean, long-time supporter of the Friends of Venice Library, graciously agreed to represent us and Venice in honor of Ray Bradbury's historical association with our locale.
Alley Mills Bean's segment is on PART TWO at timecode 52:37 – 59:39 |
An evening reading of “Fahrenheit 451” on August 22, 2020
to mark the 100th anniversary of Ray Bradbury’s birth
On Saturday, August 22, 2020, readers young and old from across the nation will gather by their TV sets, computers, tablets, and phones to watch a virtual reading of Bradbury’s classic novel Fahrenheit 451 streamed over YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram (local times to be announced). Participating partners for this extraordinary event celebrating the centennial of Bradbury’s birth are the Library of Congress, the Los Angeles Public Library, and the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, presenter of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, along with other public and university libraries nationwide. Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress, will provide the introduction to the reading. Additional introductions and readings will be given by John Szabo (Los Angeles Public Library), General Charles Bolden, Jr. (NASA), Ann Druyan (writer/producer/director), William Shatner (actor), Neil Gaiman (author), Marlon James (author), Marjorie Liu (author), P. Djèlí Clark (author), Brenda Greene (author), Alley Mills Bean (actress), James Reynolds (actor), Tananarive Due (author), Steven Barnes (author), and Rachel Bloom (actress).
Ray Bradbury’s contribution to the literary landscape and our collective imagination made him one of the best-known writers of our time. His books now sit on library shelves alongside the works of authors he read in his youth at the Carnegie Library in Waukegan, Illinois. After his family moved to Los Angeles during the Great Depression, he discovered the stacks of the Venice library and many others: no matter where he lived, the library was his school. As Bradbury would later say: “I’m completely library educated. Libraries are absolutely at the center of my life. Since I couldn’t afford to go to college, I attended the library three or four days a week from the age of eighteen on, and graduated from the library when I was twenty-eight.”
The Read-A-Thon’s on-camera readers will be as diverse as America itself. Some 40 people, selected by participating libraries and institutions, will pre-record a short segment of Fahrenheit 451. Those segments, and a few from celebrity guests, will be edited into
one continuous reading of the entire book, creating four hours of thought-provoking entertainment. Some readers will record from their homes, others from their hometown libraries—or from the places where Bradbury himself lived, worked, and explored. Locations will include the historic rooms of the Los Angeles Public Library, the Library of Congress, and the former Carnegie Library building in Waukegan where Bradbury spent much of his childhood lost in books.
Fahrenheit 451, a cautionary dystopian tale about the cost of apathy and the power of curiosity, is one of the most checked-out books at libraries throughout the United States. Viewers of the Read-A-Thon will discover--or rediscover--this redemptive story that is as powerful today as it was when it was first written. www.raybradbury.com
After the initial broadcast, the Read-A-Thon will be available until September 5, 2020.
The Participating Partners: Library of Congress, Los Angeles Public Library, and Alliance for Young Artists & Writers and the Contributing Libraries and Institutions are: Anchorage Public Library (Alaska), Athens Regional Library System (Georgia), Boston Public Library (Massachusetts), Broward County Library (Florida), Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, CUNY (New York), Center for Ray Bradbury Studies (Indiana), Central Arkansas Library System (Arkansas), Charlotte Mecklenburg Library (North Carolina), Columbus Metropolitan Library (Ohio), Cushing Memorial Library & Archives, Texas A&M University (Texas), Des Moines Public Library and Library Foundation (Ohio), Indian Valley Public Library (Pennsylvania), Pima County Public Library (Arizona), San Francisco Public Library (California), South Pasadena Library (California), The Friends of the Venice Library (California), The Seattle Public Library (Washington), University of Alaska Anchorage Consortium Library (Alaska), University of Iowa Library Special Collections (Iowa), University of Kansas Libraries (Kansas), University of Pittsburgh Library System (Pennsylvania), and the Waukegan Parks District and Library (Illinois).
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