What's On at the Library

L-R: CBC's Matt Galloway, Toronto Star's Catherine Porter, Author Andrew Pyper

As you may have heard, the library is encouraging everyone to read this year's One Book, "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury, and to come to events and discussions during Keep Toronto Reading Festival in April.

Author Andrew Pyper, whose new novel The Demonologist was recently published by Simon and Schuster, thinks Bradbury's novel is still timely 60 years after its publication.

"To me, 'Fahrenheit 451' is such an unsettling book, not because of the dystopian fantasy world it imagines, but what it identifies in the real world we live in now, where books and ideas are threatened less from the explicit attacks of censorship than an insidious cultural passivity, a voluntary withering," says Pyper. "The good news?  It only takes reading one good book to launch your own personal revolution."

Pyper - along with Metro Morning's Matt Galloway and Toronto Star's Catherine Porter - recently joined the library's "Everybody's Reading One Book" campaign. You may have seen the ads in Toronto Star and The Grid.

Galloway also filmed a video for the One Book campaign, answering the question: "If the library were burning, which book would you save?" You can also watch videos submitted by others or make your own.

Toronto firefighters are also encouraging everyone to read "Fahrenheit 451." In Bradbury's dystopian novel, firefighters burn books; but in real life, they're heroes and champions of reading.

Fire Captain Mike Strapko recently guest blogged a review of "Fahrenheit 451." Several other firefighters, including Fire Chief Jim Sales, also filmed a video sharing their one book to save if the library were burning.

In April, families will get a chance to meet outreach officers from Toronto Fire Services at branches across the city, as they share their favourite stories with kids.

We hope you'll join the One Book community read. Pick up "Fahrenheit 451" and come out to events and discussions this April that bring the book's themes - including media saturation, censorship, memory and storytelling - to life.