A book from the UCR Library's Special Collections & University Archives will be taking an Italian vacation this winter. A rare copy of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 will be on display at Fondazione Prada in Milan from February to June 2016 as part of the show To the Son of Man Who Ate the Scroll by Polish artist Goshka Macuga.

This best-selling dystopian novel depicts a future in which books are banned and firemen start fires instead of fighting them. The exhibition will include other artistic and scientific reflections on "humanity's concern with its own conclusion" to, in the words of the organizers, explore "the preservation and destruction of knowledge" in the face of "threats to our fragile existence."

Fahrenheit 451 was first published as a paperback in October 1953 by Ballantine. Later that year, the publisher issued 200 copies signed by the author and bound in boards covered in Quinterra Electrical Insulation, a chrysotile asbestos manufactured by Johns Manville and used for its fire-retardant properties. The UCR Library owns copy number 148.

If you’re worried that you might you miss "the asbestos edition" while it is away, there are plenty of other editions of Fahrenheit 451 in the UCR Library's Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy – including this limited edition published in 1982. It is bound in aluminum and features colorful, full-page illustrations by Joseph Mugnaini.

Questions about external exhibition loans can be directed to Robin M. Katz at specialcollections@ucr.edu.