I’m scouting about a new novel to use with you for next term, and have finally settled on the following:
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow.
There are loads of reasons for choosing it: it’s fairly new, it’s certainly relevant, it should get you thinking, it’ll give you plenty to talk about, and (incidentally) it’s well written… but the really good news is that you can get it for nothing!
Cory Doctorow is a great proponent of Creative Commons, and so makes all his books available for free download. (There’s a great discursive essay in there if you want to look for it!) As such, you can point your browser at his site to download it in more formats than you’ll know what to do with! The site is here: LITTLE BROTHER DOWNLOAD PAGE.
Actually, be smart, and download the Plain Text File, the PDF version and also the fanbook version that goes on your own portable device (that way, you can search the text to find the quotations you need at any time… or even read it any time you like!).
In addition, you should be able to open the PDF version and have Acrobat read it out loud for you! (There is/was even an audiobook version that was available for free, but I’m not sure if it’s still available. I’m sure you could find it if you searched hard enough! 😉
Now… I know you don’t want to hear this, but it’d be really useful if you were to buy a printed version of the novel as well! It is available from Amazon by clicking this link: Little Brother
Finally, if you do even a quick search for Little Brother, you’ll soon find that the novel has a dedicated Facebook Page, quite a few videos on YouTube, and the inevitable Wikipedia entry!
Mr W's HIGHER ENGLISH 