Confession: I love young adult series. I’ve read all of the Twilight and Hunger Games series. Go ahead. Poke fun of me, but I enjoy being able to be pulled into a novel and mindlessly read without my brain hurting.
Confession: I love Cory Doctorow. I have only ready 2/3rds of “For the Win”, but I cannot put it down. He manages to mingle his points into the storyline, and if you simply mindlessly read the story, you will understand his points without hurting your brain.
Confession: I started reading this book before I did my research on Mr. Doctorow. Before I did any research I would have told you that in addition to clearly being an amazing writer, he also certainly has some economics schooling, he has a heart for laborers in third world countries, and he has extensive knowledge of gamming.
Best I can tell, I am two for three. Doctorow, in addition to being a writer (I suppose that the shear fact that he had a book published would tell you that, but he has actually written several other books as well as hosts a blog), worked with Greenpeace as a child and did a Youth Challenge International trip in Costa Rica when he was 21. As an adult he has created/worked for several open source/P2P, but I could not find what his major was, since he never actually graduated from any of the colleges he attended.
I can’t help but love the way he intermingles the first hand story telling with the harsh realities of poor workers in third world countries and with the facts of gamming economies. Reading this book will cause you to really feel for poor workers in other countries, be cognoscente of how large the gaming world really is, and gain a basic understanding of macro economics. It’s all wonderful!!