Embrace Banned Books at the 2025 Bristol BookFest

This year’s Bristol BookFest will focus on Ray Bradbury’s dystopian classic. (Courtesy of Bristol BookFest)

According to PEN America, the United States is seeing a surge in book bans, with more than 10,000 instances of books banned during the 2023-2024 school year.

These sobering statistics remind us that freedoms aren’t automatic, and even rights enshrined in the Constitution need safeguarding. It’s a message the coordinators of this year’s Bristol BookFest have taken to heart by placing a high school classic, Ray Bradbury’s dystopian Fahrenheit 451, at the center of this year’s celebration.

“Fahrenheit 451 deals with serious issues a half century ago,” says event committee co-chair Steve Calvert of Bristol. “Those concerns are suddenly with us this very day. A book like this can make a big difference.”

Bristol BookFest was founded in 2019 as a public humanities program designed to inspire readers, promote lifelong learning and build community. The event consists of a series of talks and discussions over a two-day period, as well as several smaller events leading up to the big day. Past festivals have highlighted All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren, Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson and Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.

“This idea, that a civilian, so to speak, and an expert can come together, that their minds can meet, is something unusual. It doesn’t happen in many towns of Bristol’s size,” says resident Charles Calhoun, who co-founded the festival alongside Joanna Ziegler.

This year’s event offers a packed schedule of opportunities to connect with the book’s all-too-relevant theme, from expert panels to a real-life “mechanical hound.” On Friday, author, publisher and bookstore owner Kelly Link will offer a keynote address on the literary and social importance of speculative and fantasy fiction, including Fahrenheit 451. Link is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and the author of The Book of Love, as well as the co-founder of Small Beer Press and owner of Book Moon bookstore in Easthampton, Massachusetts. The address takes place at 5 p.m. at Colt Andrews Elementary School and will be followed by a reception at the Rogers Free Library.

Then on Saturday, Dr. Jason Aukerman, director of the Ray Bradbury Center at Indiana University Indianapolis, will offer a presentation on “Ray Bradbury: A Life Between the Pages, the Stars and the Flames of Censorship” at the Rogers Free Library. The Ray Bradbury Center is one of the largest single-author archives in the country, with more than 150,000 pages of the author’s published and unpublished works.

The presentation will be followed by group discussion, and then at 11:45 doctoral students Ivy He and Benned Hedegaard from Brown University will introduce attendees to a real-life “mechanical hound.” The hound — a Boston Dynamics robot dog named Spot — bears a resemblance to the fearsome beast from the novel and will be accompanied by a talk on the limits and capabilities of AI.

In the afternoon, Rodney Smolla, president of Vermont Law and Graduate School, will engage the audience in a mock trial of a censhorship case involving Bradbury and his book (which, ironically, faced censorship when it was first published in 1953). Smolla gained fame in his lead role representing Dominion Voting Company in their defamation suit against Fox regarding the network’s false claims surrounding the 2020 election. The day will conclude with a panel discussion and Q&A featuring Link, Aukerman and Smolla.

“We hope to attract a wider audience this year,” says Calvert. “If you read [Fahrenheit 451] in school, you may discover a different book this time. Great literature is like that — interesting when you’re young, better in midlife, most rewarding in retirement.”

The fifth iteration of BookFest is presented in partnership with sponsors who help keep the events free or low-cost to attend. Friday night’s keynote and reception are free, while Saturday’s program costs $40 to attend. Students can attend for free but must register in advance. Scholarships are available for those whose resources are limited.

While you don’t need to read the book to participate, organizers recommend picking up a copy at Inkfish Books (mention BookFest for a 10 percent discount) before attending. For anyone who skipped the required reading in high school, Fahrenheit 451 tells the story of a dystopian society where reading is banned and firemen are recruited to burn books and the homes of those who own them. Attendees can also find resources about the book from Roger Williams University, one of the event partners.

To register for the event, click here. For more information, visit bristolbookfest.com.

RELATED ARTICLES

Historical War Reenactment and Celebration Coming to Bristol in May

‘Harry Potter,’ ‘Wicked,’ ‘The Lion King’ and More Coming to PPAC in 2025-26

Providence Place Mall Lifts Local Artist’s Lifetime Ban Just in Time for Film Premiere