Yay! It's also available on Daily Lit: http://www.dailylit.com/books/down-and-o… - it'll be delivered to your rss reader or email on your schedule! The best thing ever. :-)

1)Cory Doctorow WANTS you to read his book digitally...

2)This is allegedly a favorite book of Chief Amazonian Jeff Bezos.

I just discovered there's a book called The Whuffie Factor, based on the social-networking barter medium in Down and Out. Haven't read it yet. Whuffie is a great term, because it's both sci-fi (in the context of how it's tracked in the book) and real (in terms of the commerce we engage in on social networks for our reputation).

After you finish the book, check out this video for some ideas on the path we could take to end up in that world: http://g4tv.com/videos/44277/DICE-2010-D…

This may be a really dumb question, but which version do a choose if I just want to read it on my laptop?

@Luckier: Not a dumb question at all. If your laptop has regular wifi access, the NetDoc Web-based reader option is pretty good. If you have e-mail access at least once a day, Soupytwist's suggestion of DailyLit is good, too. Otherwise, you should just download the PDF version and read it that way.

And, as a tip: When I read on my laptop, I change the PDF view orientation to sideways, turn the whole laptop sideways so it's open like a book, and read it that way.

Paul, you're my hero. Thanks!

In!

I'm good. I just read "Soccernomics" on my Kindle. Interesting, but not terribly convincing, I have to say -- and certainly a million miles away from "Bill Jamesian", as the authors claim.

Sorry, I'm busy reading some of the original works of Proust in their Premier Edition format from the espresso machine at the UW Bookstore .... until my iPad gets here.

Funny, I just finished reading this book. I'd love to yak about it in the comments.

I second the talk that gfish linked to in #4. You might wanna watch it before you start in on Down and Out. It'll blow your fucking mind.

On the off chance anyone's interested, Doctorow's going to be the guest of honor at this year's Norwescon Sci-Fi/Fantasy convention in April. I read Down and Out (and a number of his other books) as e-books last year, really looking forward to getting a chance to see him.