Megan Dunn was in a hole. Her attempt to write a fictional tribute to Fahrenheit 451 wasn't going well. Borders, the bookseller she worked for, was going bust. Her marriage was failing. Her prospects were narrowing. The world wasn't quite against her – but it wasn't exactly helping either.

Riffing on Ray Bradbury's classic novel about the end of reading, Tinderbox is one of the most interesting books in decades about literary culture and its place in the world. More than that, it's about how every one of us fits into that bigger picture – and the struggle to make sense of life in the twenty-first century.

Ironically enough for a book about failures in art, Tinderbox itself is a fantastic achievement; a wonderfully crafted and beautifully written work of non-fiction that is by turns brilliantly funny and achingly sad. ... Tinderbox is one of the most successful books about failure you will ever read.