The system was simple. Everyone understood it. Books were for burning, along with the houses in which they were hidden.
Guy Mongag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires. And he enjoyed his job. He had been a fireman for ten years, and he had never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs nor the joy of watching pages consumed by flames...never questioned anything until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid. Then Guy met a professor who told him of a future in which people could think. And Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do...
Editorial Reviews
"Frightening in its implications...Mr. Bradbury's account of this insane world, which bears many alarming resemblances to our own, is fascinating." -The New York Times
"A brilliant and frightening novel, Fahrenheit 451 is the classic narrative about censorship; utterly chilling in its implications, Ray Bradbury's masterwork captivates thousands of new readers each year." -Andrew LeCount, bn.com
"There are some books that no matter how long ago you've read them, details from the story stick in your mind. Farenheit 451 was like that for me. I was 15 when I first checked it out from the high school library. I hadn't really gotten very far into the book when a cute guy noticed I was carrying it around school. "Good book," he commented. "Yeah, I'm still reading it," I answered. Wow, I thought, approval from an older guy. That gave me the incentive to finish what turned out to be one of the most important sf novels ever written. It's been more than 20 years since I've spoken to but I'll always feel grateful to him whenever I hear about bookburnings. His tiny bit of encouragement introduced me to one of the genre's finest writers." -Amy Stout, Consulting Editor
About the Author
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) was the author of more than three dozen books, including Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and Something Wicked This Way Comes, as well as hundreds of short stories. He wrote for the theater, cinema, and TV, including the screenplay for John Huston’s Moby Dick and the Emmy Award–winning teleplay The Halloween Tree, and adapted for television sixty-five of his stories for The Ray Bradbury Theater. He was the recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, and numerous other honors.
