(Sort of, read on)

Welcome to a library built in the shadow of fire.  This is a reading room, a sanctuary, and a dare. Inspired by Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. A story set in a world where books are outlawed and burned. We invite you to step into this future that feels closer than ever, yet we hope never comes.

The Clarisse McClellan Manual for Civilization Library was an installation of over 1400 books in a standalone gazebo on the 7:30 side of the Man Base structure at the 2025 Burning Man event. Visitors were met with a room full of amazing books chosen for their value to restart civilization, and we labeled each book in the collection that had ever been banned or restricted. The Library hosted visitors all week, and on Friday at dawn, the patrons were challenged to save any books that they did not want to burn with the Man. By the afternoon on Friday, we are happy to report that absolutely every book was saved.

Thank you all for your support, book donations, visits, stories and of course rescuing of the books.

Why Clarisse Mclellan?
   In Bradbury’s novel, Clarisse McClellan is the luminous spark who wakes the protagonist, Guy Montag, to the beauty of thinking for oneself. It is for her that we named this collection. In our time, books are again being pulled from shelves, ideas silenced, and histories rewritten. The question for all of us is the same one Bradbury asked: What will you do when knowledge is under threat?

    In the library, you will find shelves of banned books, and books worth saving if we had to sustain civilization, or start over from nothing. Some are classics. Some are tools for survival. Some are windows into the past, others are blueprints for the future.

    This installation is modeled after the Manual for Civilization project created for The Interval at The Long Now Foundation, a collection meant to preserve the wisdom, creativity, and knowledge humanity would need to sustain itself or rebuild from the ground up. Unlike that static archive, this library is alive, and its fate will be decided by you.

 How it Worked:
    From Monday through Thursday on Burning Man the library was for reading, reflection, and conversation. Every book remains for all to enjoy. On Friday starting at dawn, permanent check-out began. Patrons chose to take any book they believed should survive. 

At sunset on Friday, any book still on the shelves would be set to burn with the Man.
But all that week and until that moment, the shelves were yours. The choice is yours.
Save the books… or let them burn.

Burning Man Live Podcast with artist Alexander Rose
The collection at The Internet Archive
Lists of Banned Books
More about Fahrenheit 451

More about our inspiration: Clarisse McClellan

She walked in the rain without an umbrella.  
She tasted the wind as if it whispered secrets.
She asked questions that burned brighter than the answers.
And then, one day, she was gone.
Clarisse lived in a world where people forgot to feel.
She noticed things others missed... a dandelion on the sidewalk, 
  a bird still singing, the hush when machines fell silent.

She noticed you, even before you noticed yourself.

In Fahrenheit 451, she is a brief breath in a world holding itself too tightly.
She doesn’t shout or preach, she simply wonders aloud,
and that wondering is enough to shake a life.
She walks. She watches. She feels. And then she disappears.
Maybe she died.
Maybe she ran.
Maybe she became something more.

This library was built in her honor, 
a refuge for ideas that refuse to die quietly.  
On Friday, it may burn.
Unless you choose to save it.
Step inside.
Read something that reminds you you’re alive.
Pass it on.
Become the memory someone else will need.
Clarisse did not build it with her hands.  
She built it by waking us up.

And if you listen closely, you 
might hear her voice behind the shelves:
“Do you notice the way the light falls in the evening?”
“Have you ever really tasted the rain?”
“Are you awake?”