I was living outside the country and in my own little religious world when the 2008 financial crisis hit, and so my understanding of that moment in history has always been kind of flimsy. Despite being a weird near-future MMO-centric book, I kind of feel like reading this helped?

I read on Wikipedia that some critics weren’t a fan of the economics tangents, but I like Doctorow when he’s didactic, so even though I didn’t follow all the details, I enjoyed what he was going for (I just don’t have a head for economics or finance). Doctorow’s social concerns are also front and center here, in the same way they are in some of his more recent fiction, and I appreciate the way his narratives move me in a way that a philosophical argument wouldn’t.

• For the Win
• Cory Doctorow