Fahrenheit 451

BOOKS ARE DANGEROUS— THEY MAKE YOU THINK!

Montag is a fireman—a fireman of a future time when books are forbidden and reading is the greatest crime. For books lead to thinking, thinking leads to dissatisfaction, and dissatisfaction can lead to a desire for change—a thing the government will do anything to pre- vent. Montag's job is not to extinguish fires but to set them: to burn the homes (occupied or not) of bookowners and, above all, to burn the books. He ac- cepts unquestioningly the necessity for his work; what he cannot understand is the criminals who persist in hiding, preserving, and even distributing the banned material.

And then one day Montag begins to read one of the books he has been destroying, and his life changes forever....