Fahrenheit 451 is a classic dystopian novel. Dystopias are the opposite of utopias: worlds that, for one or many reasons, none of us would want to live in. The word "dystopia" comes from Greek and means, roughly, "bad place".

Why would anyone want to write or read about such a "bad place"? First of all, dystopian fiction is often designed to comment on the writer's own society by exaggerating hidden flaws or pointing out the danger of emerging trends. The title of Robert A. Heinlein's 1940 short novel about an American theocracy would fit many dystopias: If This Goes On- .

Second, dystopias show how characters we care about resist, escape, survive, or succumb to the evils of the society the author has imagined. These stories can be very moving, and they encourage us to think about how we would-and do-react when we find some aspect of the world we live in fundamentally unpleasant or unfair.

You may want to check out more classic, influential and recommended "bad places" in the Library collection:

• 1984 by George Orwell
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
• The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
• Neuromancer and sequels by William Gibson
• Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
• The Plot against America by Philip Roth
• Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
• We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

It might be discouraging to read these dark books all at once!

Please recommend your own favorite dystopias-and utopias-in the comments.