I know that I will, with this statement, mark myself for intense hatred. But.
I’ve burned books. About 10ish. None of them for political reasons; there was definitely a reason I bought them in the first place. But, after my place flooded and several books were pretty water damaged, I was left with books I wouldn’t ever read again, and I’m not going to keep books I’m never going to read again around. I could not donate them to anywhere. So, they need to be recycled. But, recycling them, through the city recycling plan with the big purple bin, same as the soda cans means that recycling these books costs money. Burning them as kindling in my real fireplace doesn’t. Burning them is the most cost-efficient way to make sure they are recycled and have a meaningful end. None of them were rare books, all of them were mass printings, where I knew that there were tons more copies just in my city alone.
The reason for book burning being abhorrent is the context. The action itself is not the problem, the context is. And really, sometimes you do need to get rid of a book, and I don’t really think throwing them in the shredder or the trash bin is really that much better than burning them. It’s not like if Hitler, Savonarola, et al had just been like “boys, bring out the giant shredders”, we’d all be fine with their actions. Because we’re appalled by why they did it, not that there was fire involved.