Rating: 
Summary: Technology Specialist
Review: It's not hard for me to believe that 8 minutes of one-sided conversations from a 17 year old could change 10 years of beliefs, it happens every night as "We" watch the "News", so why would the book be any different. A great awakening to what "We" are already doing to ourselves. Characters are realistic in that they are living among us already.
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Summary: A classic that hasn't aged very well at all
Review: I have to be honest and confess that my rating is really three stars + one star for the historic value. This is the novel that 7th grade English teachers across the US recommend to teach children the value of books-- I guess that that fact alone earns it a star.Bradbury creates a vision of a world where Firemen burn books when they're found instead of putting out fires. People have wall-sized interactive television which has taken the place of family life. Teenagers are encouraged to drive as quickly as possible when bored, and bearing children is officially nearly forbidden. One fireman, spurred on by a non-conformist neighbor, begins to question his task and becomes alive to the value in books. While some of the messages certainly are still relevant, the book is not as strong of an effort of other Bradbury novels. The tone and the heavy message focus date the book and tend to say more to someone interested in the concerns of the 50s then they really appeal to modern readers. Difficult not to recommend, all things considered, but don't expect too much.
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Summary: stunning idea - mediocre writing
Review: Ray Bradbury's vision of a world without books is genius. However, I don't think he was able to convey all that he wanted to with this book. It could be that the almost-novella length left him without the option to fully develop the characters. I was vexed not knowing what happended to Clarisse, and I was intrigued by the idea of the literati outcasts who roamed the rails. I think that in and of itself would have made an interesting novel. I couldn't understand the reasoning behind the book burnings. Captain Beatty's explanations left me wondering if that was the full story? Humanity is flawed in the extreme,but this seems to suggest a reverse in evolution - human intelligence on a steady downward spiral. I hope that it would take a little more than the explanations given by Captain Beatty to inspire the world-wide destruction of books - especially in this manner. Wouldn't incinerators be much more effective at destroying books than torching houses and buildings? I realize that the book was written very quickly, and maybe Mr. Bradbury got caught up in the passion of writing it, at the expense of character development. But I rated this book 4 stars anyway, because I respect the brilliance of the idea, and Mr. Bradbury made a very bold statement by writing about a topic he felt strongly about. It makes you think, which is more than I can say about the vast majority of literature published.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor audiobook
Review: This may be a classic story, but Ray Bradbury is not a classic reader... I couldn't get through 5 minutes of his voice. I DO look forward to reading the actual book!
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Summary: FAHRENHEIT 451
Review: Fahrenheit 451 in my mind is a very well-written book by Ray Bradbury. Sometimes this book did get very weird, but it all had a purpose towards the end of the book. The author of this book had a very good idea for a story like this and he wrote it very well.
Guy Montag has had his job for ten years as a fireman, but books were for burning and the houses in which they were hidden. This man goes out on midnight, runs and watches pages become inflamed in fire. Then he meets a professor that tells him in the future when people could think, and then he realizes what he has to do.
I enjoyed this book quite a bit and I would recommend this book for you if you like Science Fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: Fahrenheit 451
Review: At one point Firefighters put fires out, now they start fires. Books are illegal, when found with books in your house, your house is burnt down. The protaganist, Montag is a firefighter who never questioned his job until he met Clarisse. Clarisse makes him think about why books are so wrong. Montag decided to rebel from his job and read books. This is all fine until his plan backfires. His house is burnt down, he loses his friends and his wife leaves him. Now Montag is running from the law...
One character that stands out in my mind is Clarisse. Clarisse is a seventeen year old who enjoy reading. She meets Montag and tells him that at one point books were legal. She explains to him why she reads and tries to convince Montag to read. She changes Montag's opinion on books.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in futuristic books. This book may get a little confusing at points but it makes you think. You wonder what a world without reading would be like and if a world like this could ever exist.
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Summary: This was a terrible book!
Review: I had to read this book for school and I abolutely hated it. To start off with, it wasn't very well written and the characters and situations were unbelieveable and boring. Montag was a very odd character and hard to relate to and it bugged the [STUFF] out of me how he cried about everything! The book didn't really have a very powerful message either. It was basically don't watch TV, read books. The world will be lost without them! And the whole thing about the stupid Harvard degrees on the railroad tracks was cheesy and stupid. If you can memorize a piece of literature so easily, what's the point for books? I compared this book to Orwell's 1984, which I read last year, and there was no comparison. This book was not nearly as chilling and thought provoking and failed horribly in getting it's point across. With all the talk of firemen burning books, you were tempted to put a match to this one. I also disagree with a major point of the book that implies with the loss of literature comes the loss of morality. The book took place in the future but not that far in the future. I got the idea that it took place only one or two generations after it was written. The morality of the world could not be lost in that amount of time.
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Summary: Written in the basement of the UCLA library
Review: One big rift between the book and the movie [Fahrenheit 451 (1966) -- Oskar Werner, Julie Christie] is that in the movie the "written word" was completely removed (even from the credits), where as in the book the state was against literature and not technical writing. Books are just symbols of ideas that could have been on the screen also. There is a deference between training and education. Among other reasons the book was a symbol of one mans superiority over another in a world of equals. I do not want to tell much of the story, as the unfolding is part of the intrigue. However now that houses are fire proof the purpose of firemen are performing a service by burning books to maintain the happy social order. Naturally One fireman goes awry after several emotional incidences that run counter to his carrier. This leads to all kinds of deviant things like reading. What are you doing now?
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Summary: HATED IT!
Review: I really did not like this book! Now, don't get me wrong the idea was good, but the writing was horrible. I normally like Ray Bradbury's work, too. The writing style was very repetitive and boring. I think that this is one of those books that could have been great if written differently.
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Summary: The Tyranny of the Masses
Review: This slim little novella is a rollicking story about Guy Montag, a "firefighter" of the future who loves his job. His job is not to put out fires, but to set them. Montag and his comrades burn books for a living. It doesn't matter what type of books, they have all been targeted for incineration. Apparently, in the America of Guy's time, the people, and especially the government, have decided that books are a bad deal. Books make people think and agonize over choices, which is a bad thing. The real goal of society should be happiness for everyone. Since no one can be happy if they are always worrying about things they read, the solution is clear. Unfortunately, many people seem to have a problem with this, at least on a subconscious level. Suicides in Guy's world are sky high, so high that they have special teams of medics go around and suck pills and other nasty poisons out of the people who have decided they don't want to live anymore. The government does try to placate the masses through mind numbing television and radio shows (see Guy's wife, Mildred). People that refuse to go along with the program are sent away, or worse. Guy wakes up when he meets a young neighbor who turns him on to the way of experiencing life. Guy eventually rebels and ends up as part of a group who memorize books to preserve them for future generations. I'm leaving out lots of details to the book with this description. After all, I don't want to spoil the whole thing for you. What seems to be more important about this book is its value to today's world. Although written years ago, some of Bradbury's details are amazingly prescient. The omnipresence of television and other means of electronic control certainly ring true today. Also, the censoring of books continues unabated even now, with every type of group clamoring for some type of control over what the rest of us read. Certainly, burning books of every sort couldn't be far away. Since most people read nothing but pap these days anyway, I can imagine Plato and Milton going up in flames soon enough. Who wants to read that boring stuff when you can watch TV or go to a movie? Soon after this comes what Bradbury refers to as, "the tyranny of the masses." If enough people don't want to do something, you better jump on the bandwagon too. Try going to work and speaking out against multiculturalism and see what happens. Throw out your TV set and tell people about doing so. You'll be branded a freak and avoided like the plague. People are cattle, plain and simple. Bradbury does seem to have some hope for our sorry condition, as can be seen at the end of the book. However, getting to that state will take some time, I'm afraid.
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