It takes place in an unspecified future time in an anti-intellectual America that has completely abandoned self-control. This America is filled with lawlessness in the streets ranging from teenagers crashing cars to firemen who burn books instead of fight fires. Anyone caught reading or possessing books is, at the minimum, confined to a mental hospital while the books are burned by the firemen. It is never really specified what constitutes an illegal book but anything from the bible to works of literature.
One rainy night returning from his job, fireman Guy Montag meets his new neighbor Clarisse McClellan, whose free-thinking ideals and liberating spirit force him to question his life, his ideals, and his own perceived happiness. Clarisse always asked why and never just accepted a pat answer. Later Montag finds out that Clarisse is hit by a car and killed, her family gone.
After the first meeting of Clarisse, Montag returns home to find his wife Mildred asleep with an empty bottle of sleeping pills next to her bed. He calls for medical help; two technicians respond by proceeding to suck out Mildred's blood with a machine and insert new blood into her. The technicians' utter disregard for Mildred forces Montag to question the state of society.
In the following days, while ransacking the book-filled house of an old woman before the inevitable burning, Montag accidentally reads a line in one of her books: "Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine". This prompts him to steal one of the books. The woman refuses to leave her house and her books, choosing instead to light a match she had concealed from the firemen's view, prematurely igniting the flammable kerosene the firemen had sprayed her house with and, in a bizarre act subsequently burns herself alive along with her beloved books. This severely disturbs Montag, who wonders why someone would die for books, which he considers to be without value.
Jarred by the woman's suicide, Montag calls in sick, but gets a visit from his fire chief Captain Beatty, who explains to him the political and social causes which underlie the work they perform. Captain Beatty claims that society, in its search for happiness and in an attempt to minimize cultural offenses through political correctness, brought about the suppression of literature as an act of self-censorship and that the government merely took advantage of the situation. Beatty adds that all firemen eventually steal a book out of curiosity, but all would be well if the book is turned in within 24 hours. Montag argues with his wife, Mildred, over the book he himself has stolen, showing his growing disgust for her and for his society.
After Beatty leaves it is revealed that Montag has, over the course of a year, hidden dozens of books in the ventilation shafts of his own house, and tries to memorize them to preserve their contents, but becomes frustrated that the words seem to simply fall away from his memory. He then remembers a man he had met at one time: Faber, a former English professor. Montag seeks Faber's help, where after Faber begins teaching Montag about the vagaries and ambiguities but overall importance of literature in its attempt to explain human existence. He also tells him what books really mean. He also gives Montag a green bullet-shaped ear-piece so that Faber can offer guidance throughout his daily activities.
After a disastrous encounter with Beatty in which he kills him and severely injures 2 other firefighters, Montag flees to Faber's house. Even though he killed the hound another has been sent after him with television network helicopters in hot pursuit. The newscasters hope to document his escape as a spectacle, and distract the people from the oncoming threat of war, a threat that has been foreshadowed throughout the book via the reader being repeatedly told of planes flying over the buildings that the characters are in, as well as a radio broadcast that says "this country stands ready to defend itself".
Faber tells Montag of vagabond book-lovers in the countryside. Montag then escapes to a local river, floats downstream and meets a group of older men who, to Montag's astonishment, have memorized entire books, preserving them orally until the law against books is overturned. They burn the books they read to prevent discovery, retaining the verbatim content (and possibly valid interpretations) in their minds. The group leader, Granger, discusses the legendary phoenix and its endless cycle of long life, death in flames, and rebirth, adding that the phoenix must have some relation to mankind, which constantly repeats its mistakes.
Meanwhile, the television network helicopters surround and kill another man (who regularly walks about) instead of Montag, to maintain the illusion of a successful hunt for the watching audience. But in the end the war begins. Montag watches helplessly as jet bombers fly overhead and attack the city with nuclear weapons. Montag is sad to think that Mildred has died but he hopes that Faber has left the city. They assume that more cities across the country have been incinerated as well; a bitter irony in that the world that sought to burn thought is burned itself. While the initiation of modern society is clear Montag the survivors strive to create a new world in which literature and intellectual freedom will prevail.
I listened to this story on CD and it included a fascinating prologue that Bradbury wrote in 1979 where he talks about the play he wrote based on the book as well as told the progress he took to write the original story and the censorship he has gotten over the years. It is really incredible how a story from the 1950's could still be relevant in an even more profound way. I read this in college and really enjoyed it even more now.