“It was a pleasure to burn.”

That’s the opening line to Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” describing the feeling of systematically destroying the world’s hidden caches of books.

I wonder how our society would respond to a governmental anti-book policy. Sure, there are lots of us who love to read and consider books an important part of our lives. But what about those who could really care less?

If Major League Soccer folded tomorrow, I honestly wouldn’t think twice about it while die-hard U.S. soccer fans might be devastated. The same goes for coffee — I don’t drink it, so I really wouldn’t care.

Bradbury paints a world where leaders are scared by an informed public and sees banning books as an integral part of its control:

“If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war.”

It is a world of dulled senses and stilted emotions, one marked by living room walls made up of giant television screens assuring everyone that everything is OK.

But like Winston in George Orwell’s “1984,” not everyone is content to buy into the system. Some people still think, still read those banned books even though they risk being caught and facing a fiery penalty.

If you enjoyed “1984” you’d absolutely get into this book. In a post-story interview in my edition, Bradbury explains the difference as Orwell tackling the implications of governmental control while he deals with the societal fallout.

The “bonus material” also adds a great tidbit about Bradbury renting time on a typewriter in the UCLA library in order to write the book. He says it cost 10 cents for a half hour, leading him to write the book at a furious pace — half of it (25,000 words) in nine days.

Despite the novel’s themes of having to fight attacks against intellectualism and personal voice, Bradbury weaves in moments of individual triumph. He portrays humans as having a hopeful spirit, one that perseveres through obstacles that will eventually ensure their own failure.

He writes: “It doesn’t matter what you do…so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching. The lawn cutter might just as well have not been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”

Here’s to hoping people never lose the desire to create and share and think.