Favorite book of 2008

My favorite book of 2008 was Little Brother by Cory Doctorow.
It's my favorite for a couple reasons; not the least of which is that while it can be had for free download on the internet, provided by the author, not theft, it is also for sale and is a HUGE sales success.

From the author's site:

The US edition is doing spectacularly, having just gone on to an eighth hardcover printing (the hardcover’s selling so well that my publisher’s delayed the paperback for a year!). The book’s made just about everyone’s best-of lists for 2008:

It's a young adult novel that,  briefly, tells the story of a high-school kid, group of kids, who live in a surveillance intensive society. The government, city, state, federal, watch and track almost everything, and then a terrorist attack happens and the tracking gets worse. Freedoms are curtailed, and people are kidnapped by their own government to be investigated for behavior that doesn't match societal norms as determined by the surveillance. It's a fight back against Big Brother by kids, hence the name. That's such a brief thumbnail description it doesn't do it justice.

You don't have to trust me on this one. You really can get it for free from the author's site, and if you like it you can buy a dead-tree version if you like, or even an audiobook version. I got it for free, read it on my palm and liked it enough to buy the dead tree version and the audiobook version.

Little Brother a great book, and it changed the way I look at the world around me. No higher praise can be given a book.