
Books that Aaron Swartz read, loved and hated - wowsig
http://shelfjoy.com/shelfjoy/all-the-books-aaron-swartz-loved-hated-wrote-and-blogged-about
======
wowsig
I don't think my intense fascination with Aaron's life will ever fade away.

Sometime back, I thought of reading through his entire blog and came across
his year-end reading lists wherein he would list anywhere from 70-140 books
read in that particular year.

Because all these books were linked to books.theinfo.org (which is not alive),
I decided to put it into a shelf where I could add them to my reading list and
access them directly.

This is my very small attempt at spreading the sheer magic of Aaron's
curiosity.

Currently, I have been able to add books from 2006, 06, 08 and 10. Its a work-
in-progress.

~~~
ploggingdev
If you haven't already, read The Boy Who Could Change the World: The Writings
of Aaron Swartz [1] and watch this documentary (The story of Aaron Swartz)
[2].

> I don't think my intense fascination with Aaron's life will ever fade away.

Yes, it still hurts to think about his untimely death and what could have
been.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Could-Change-
World/dp/1620970...](https://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Could-Change-
World/dp/162097066X)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpvcc9C8SbM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpvcc9C8SbM)

~~~
wowsig
I know. I still think that he's around. Not able to wrap my head around his
absence and for such a reason!

------
rrggrr
Is MIT's recent disobedience award a tacit apology to Aaron, unrelated, or a
cynical attempt to change perception about MIT? One would expect Aaron to
posthumously receive the first award if the intent were sincere.

[https://www.media.mit.edu/disobedience/](https://www.media.mit.edu/disobedience/)

~~~
gentoo
I think it's worth noting that this is a Media Lab award, not one presented by
the regular MIT administration. The Media Lab is given a lot of free reign and
tends to do more out-there stuff. You should not construe them as speaking for
the same people who betrayed Aaron (if that's how you see it happening).

~~~
totalZero
Not to be pedantic, but I just learned a few minutes ago that "free rein" is
the correct spelling, as in horseback riding. Thought I would share the
knowledge.

------
kerbalspacepro
Is this another cynical list of books that is reaping clicks for Amazon
Affiliate bucks?

~~~
andresgottlieb
Most links posted on HN are "cynical" content that are "reaping clicks" for ad
affiliate "bucks", welcome to the internet, Sir

~~~
kerbalspacepro
While you're right most of the posts here are trying to get some pay off for
the site in question (the incentive to post here is not as strong as reddit,
for example), I think it's unfair to say most people are looking for ad
affiliate bucks.

Plus, I can understand websites that use the affiliate system as long as they
give me some long term value. I just don't think this website would do that.

------
msielski
I read Chomsky's Understanding Power on Aaron's recommendation [1]. I found it
equally transformative.

[1]
[http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/epiphany](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/epiphany)

------
davis
Google Cache version:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://shelfjoy.com/shelfjoy/all-
the-books-aaron-swartz-loved-hated-wrote-and-blogged-about)

------
sharkweek
I recently read Infinite Jest, and while I loved all the micro-essays and
commentary, prose, and most of the characters' stories, the ending was a big
"WTF."

So I Googled 'Infinite Jest Ending" to try and figure it out. Lo and behold,
Aaron Swartz had written one of the best theories I was able to find, and
while he's making a few assumptions about DFW's intent, it does help close the
loop a bit.

Lots of spoilers, so I don't recommend reading this if you plan on reading the
book anytime soon:

[http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend)

~~~
wowsig
I had this moment on his commentary on Dark Night.

------
sotojuan
It is interesting how someone who read so much can have so few, if any, books
in common with me (who reads around 50-70% as much as Swartz does in a year).
There's really a ton of books out there for everyone :-)

~~~
wowsig
And guess what, there's still 2 years of data still missing from this. I've
been typing them all in manually so I thought of publishing a work-in-
progress.

------
wowsig
Really disappointed to see this flagged.

~~~
dang
Since your effort seems heartfelt, we'll turn off the flags.

~~~
wowsig
Thanks a lot dang.

I thought that this post was flagged because of something I did. Didn't
realise that the flag was because of a nasty comment on Aaron. Feels bad to
let that take away our HN #2 glory though :(

Another time!

------
oye_coder
I always wanted something like this. Just love the website.Awesome design and
the site is well made. :)

------
tienthanh8490
I have written a script to compile all his blog posts into a .mobi ebook if
anyone is interested

[https://github.com/tienthanh8490/aaronsw](https://github.com/tienthanh8490/aaronsw)

