A Book You Must Read - Little Brother

I'm a senior at Cesar Chavez high in San Francisco's sunny Mission district, and that makes me one of the most surveilled people in the world. My name is Marcus Yallow, but back when this story starts, I was going by w1n5t0n. Pronounced "Winston."

I am a voracious reader, I go through at least a book a week. I read all sorts of books, fiction and non. My favorite tend to be sci-fi and fantasy, although historical and historical fiction are up there as well. Over the past 2 days I read a book that rates as one of the best books, if not the best, that I have ever read. I was unable to STOP reading it, outside of going to work and sleeping. And even work I more or less skipped today. I felt bad, but this book was so engrossing, so terrifying and had so much truth in it that I could not stop. 

The book is by Cory Doctorow, and it is called "Little Brother," and you have to read it. It is freely available online, and it is licensed under Creative Commons (much like this site) meaning that you can copy it, change it, basically do whatever you want with it as long as you attribute the original work and release your work under the same license. 

I'm not going to bother doing a full review, but I will tell you that it follows a geeky American High School Senior who is at the wrong place at the wrong time. This boy ends up seeing just how awful the statement, "everything changed on (insert date of a terror attack here)" truly is. I hope reading this book helps show you the error in the logic of so many of the acts and programs that government tries to force on us. If one person reads this book as a result of my linking to it and starts to see just how bad unchecked government can be in the name of security, than this entire blog has been worth it in my opinion. 

Read it here, from the original host.

Or read it right here on this site.