I am an avid reader, and the advance of technology brings me happy times when I’m able to read lots and lots on my phone without having to pay for it or even wait for it to be shipped. However, most eBooks are fiction, and most of it dry, old, crusty fiction that I just can’t stand. Fortunately, humanity is awesome, and the books below are non-fiction, modern and interesting. Oh, and free.
The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling
This book is so long but so good. If you have any interest in underground hacker groups, high-tech government agents, the battle for civil rights online and the securing of America against cyber-terrorists, you must read this amazing book. My proverbial hat is off to the author who writes about over a century of cyberspace history (not a typo, he really details cyberspace as existing for over a century because he’s that awesome). Even better, he makes what could be a dead-dull boring story seem like an epic fantasy, due in large part to the author’s history as a fiction writer. More fiction writers should write non-fiction if this is the result.
The Patriotic Principle by Marvin McKenzie
This book is on the list just for fun. The author is a minister who is doing his best to make the case that being a good Christian means being patriotic, but the book comes off as an outstandingly creepy 1984-style manual to always obey the government because God wants you to. If you’re conservative, you’ll be annoyed, if you’re liberal, it makes for a good ghost story around the campfire. As someone who would like to see credible conservative arguments, I found the book very entertaining.
Project MKULTRA Documents
What’s not to like about a series of government experiments involving hypnosis, LSD, unknowing human experimentation and assassin training? In one of the most bizarre and just plain wrong uses of American tax dollars, the FOIA-obtained documents are collected in one place and can be found for free with Munsey’s.
Recipes for Disaster by Crimeth Inc.
This book is absolutely huge. Essentially a dictionary of how to fight The Man, it is rooted in being a serious response to such classics as “Steal This Book” and the “Anarchist’s Cookbook”. While solidly anarchist and hippie, it is in a strange way a proto-Tea Party narrative at times. Lucidly written and having some great essays and anarchist war stories, I found it very entertaining. Plus it’s like 500 pages so you can’t go wrong.
You Don’t Need a Weatherman by the Weathermen Underground
Most recently controversial in the 2008 presidential race, the Weathemen were a radical organization in the 1960s that one could easily argue were terrorists. While no one could prove that they ever killed or injured anyone in their bombings of government buildings, they still very much took responsibility for those acts of violence against property. Released in full, but pockmarked with unfortunate conversion errors in the script, is their manifesto, in which they ally themselves with black liberation groups of the time. Regardless of your politics, it’s a really enlightening time capsule of American history.
