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Welcome to the first round of KYM Summer Reading!

All important links will go in this initial post.

We are currently reading Cory Doctorow's Little Brother
Goodreads | Amazon | Project Gutenberg | Teaching Books

Download the book for free here

Reading Guide with Questions

Another guide made for teachers

Timeline: Introduction & first 2 chapters up for discussion beginning 05/25/13

So it looks like there are 21 chapters & a bunch of before/after extras (esp a few on copyright and transmission that i think are going to be really fun to discuss!

I'm going through some reading guides now to help solidify a reading schedule. I'm thinking maybe 2-4 chapters a week if we can handle it? I don't know what everyone's general reading activities are though!

Yeah, 2-4 chapters is what I typically read. Granted, I've been re-reading the A Song of Ice and Fire series so it kinda depends on how long each chapter is.

That could be doable, maybe. At what point during the week would we discuss what we've read?

Oh my word… the layers of authenticity to the discussion questions… this must have taken days. I'm profoundly impressed.

Well I didn't actually write them, I just borrowed them from some teaching programs :)

So, it's Tuesday now -- I'm thinking having all the intro stuff (there's a lot of it!) & first two chapters read for Saturday? Does everyone think that's doable? We can always check in on Thursday or Friday and see how we're doing :)

On Saturday I'll post a few discussion questions -- remember those spoiler tags! Also, feel free to pop in any time during the week to post your thoughts or questions!

Aaah, Little Brother. The kind of morally challenging, topical and still interesting book that we never read when I was in high school.

So far, Saturday sounds good. I'm going to see if I can get this from the library, because I would rather have a paper copy.

Are we still good for the first two chapters for Saturday, or do you guys want to wait a week so we can be sure everyone has a copy?

I am down to do a google hangout if you guys want real time chat as well!

All the intro stuff + first two chapters sounds fine to me. I've already read most of the intro stuff, and those chapters don't seem too lengthy.

Dang, I was pleasantly surprised by those two chapters.

me too! i actually kept on reading til chapter four because it got so good.

i wanted to take some time to see what you guys thought about the copyright section in the beginning. i found it really interesting as a writer and librarian myself to see someone so forward about copying/sharing works and supportive of remixing their work. it's true, most of my favorite authors i've found through something someone loaned me or a copy i've found online.

I think it's very cool of the author to just GIVE his work away, sure. It's very generous of him. I don't really know how he got away with it, but considering he was a copyright lawyer I suppose the answer is far more technical than I'd care to know.

"Internet explorer, Microsoft crashware turd that no one under the age of 40 used voluntarily"
Sounds about right.

But anyways I'm finding this book to be very interesting, especially because I just wrote a 3000 word essay on privacy and surveillance technology. All the technology mentioned in the first two chapters are entirely plausible or already exist, although they sound highly illegal.

So, this is still happening, right? I wanted to toss in my two cents about the opening of the book.

I never like when an author gives you the motivation behind his story before you even read it. He didn't have to have those soapbox paragraphs in the intro to remind you that the story you're about to read deals with privacy, security, and invasive governments in the name of "safety." The narrative speaks for itself. It's certainly not like those themes were somehow obscured in the book. Also I don't really care about an author's beliefs when reading something like this. That sounds harsh, but I'm not interested in being talked at, I'm interested in a good story. So after about a paragraph, I skipped the intro and just read the text. I don't mean to sound too uptight about it, and I am VERY much enjoying the novel, but all that intro crap irked me.