The Boy Who Could Change the World

by Aaron Swartz

  After I wrote a draft of this introduction, I asked the Aaron in my head about it, and he yelled at me. All you can say is that he liked books? How unoriginal! You need more This American Life–type details, things that sound irrelevant but aren’t. So I threw out that draft and started again.

  Aaron was unafraid to throw things out and start again—laws, ideas, essays. You will not be surprised to know that he was obsessed with the craft of writing. (He was obsessed with a lot of things. That was Aaron.) He held Malcolm Gladwell the “scientist” in contempt, but he pored over Gladwell’s Outliers to understand how it worked. Writers he loved got even more attentive treatment. When Aaron found a passage he admired, he read it aloud “to get a feel for the sound of the voice.” His own literary voice was like his personality: nerdy, focused, funny, and a little pushy. No, very pushy: Why are you wasting your time on things you’re good at? Lean into the pain.

  Aaron’s book reviews—and he wrote a lot of them—are pushy, too: This book shocked and confused me. Read it. Even when he loved a book, he argued with it, or told the author about the book she should have written. The reviews are funny, too. His gut punches come wrapped in punch lines. (Aaron’s entire review of On Writing Well: “This book is really dreadful, mostly because the author actually cannot write well.”)

  Hyperarticulate, hyperkinetic, attuned to the black comedy of America’s contradictions, and with plenty of contradictions of his own, Aaron would have been the perfect subject for a David Foster Wallace profile. As it was, Aaron found a literary lodestar in the wordy moody warmhearted maddening saddening uplifting brilliant DFW. As a writer, Aaron played with imitating Wallace’s digressive footnote-freckled voice, but he quickly fell back into his own. As a reader, though, Aaron latched on to this grandmaster of seeing people as they really are and loving them nonetheless. Aaron maintained comprehensive Wikipedia bibliographies of DFW’s works and is responsible for the only truly convincing explanation I have seen of what happens at the end of Wallace’s thousand-page novel Infinite Jest: a masterful close reading he penned while busy with his usual million other things.

  Later, Aaron would write, “DFW’s suicide hit me very hard. I ended up coping by reading every piece of nonfiction he’d ever published. He was a brilliant, tortured man and I see so much of myself in him. His nonfiction was fantastic and I will consider my life a success if I can do half of what he did.”

  I would say that Aaron was the David Foster Wallace of his generation, but you already know how that story ends.

  —James Grimmelmann

  Recommended Books

  Aaron posted annual lists of the books he read, with notes on his favorites (and sometimes his not-so-favorites). Below is a representative sample of his recommendations, drawn from his lists from 2006 through 2011. —Ed.

  G. H. Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology (PDF)

  Godfrey Hardy was a great mathematician. But, looking back on his life, he wondered what it was he had actually contributed to society. In this, his classic defense of his pragmatically worthless profession, he examines what it means to have spent your life wisely. (Previous thoughts: my apology, Legacy.)

  Raymond Smullyan, 5000 BC (And Other Philosophical Fantasies)

  In this bizarrely delightful little book, Smullyan, the famed recreational logician, addresses topics from the annoyances on long car rides to the most difficult problems in philosophy, often at once, using stories that are so delightfully amusing that it seems hard to believe they could have any educational value.

  George Saunders, In Persuasion Nation: Stories

  I have to be honest with you. I’m not really one for science fiction. Indeed, I’m not a big fan of fiction in general. But George Saunders is different: I’ll read just about anything by him. Saunders’ stories manage to combine a whimsically imagined future, biting critique of our present era, along with a use of language so delightfully varied that one wonders how one man can have such control over his authorial voice.

  Thomas Geoghegan, Which Side Are You On?: Trying to Be for Labor When It’s Flat on Its Back

  One would think a book on labor history would be dreadfully dull and, more to the point, depressing. And yet, in the first chapter of this book, I found something that made me laugh or smile widely on practically every page. My friend Rick Perlstein got me to read this book by telling me it was “the best political book of the last 15 years[—]the best book of the last 15 years.” (He’s since taken me to meet Geoghegan several times.) It’s hard to imagine a book more important and touching.

  Robert Karen, Becoming Attached: Unfolding the Mystery of the Infant-Mother Bond and Its Impact on Later Life

  At the beginning of the last century, doctors thought parental love was unimportant: parents weren’t allowed to even visit their kids in the hospital, psychology experts encouraged moms not to hug or kiss their children, the U.S. government handed out pamphlets on how to be firm with your children. This tour de force book tells the amazing story of how all that was overturned by a group of dedicated scientists whose research into the subject of parental love brought some of the most stunningly strong results in the entire field of psychology. Thrillingly good story, textbook on the science, and self-help guide all in one—I can’t recommend this book enough.

  David Feige, Indefensible: One Lawyer’s Journey into the Inferno of American Justice

  Being a public defender is a fairly interesting job, but David Feige manages to make it downright fascinating in this in-depth description of his career. Feige describes his life in luscious detail, from the urine on his doorstep to the gritty details of the courtroom, and doesn’t hesitate to name names or dig into unpleasant subjects. If only there was a book this good on every career.

  Scott McCloud, Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels

  Any Scott McCloud book is a treasure, but this one is especially probing. Essentially, McCloud asks what it is a writer does and what it takes to be a good one. His medium is comics, but a lot of the rules are applicable to other formats and it’s hard to imagine a book this curious or this well written about them.

  Matt Taibbi and Mark Ames, The eXile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia

  Matt Taibbi is my favorite political journalist. He writes with a raw honesty that manages to be both politically biting and hilarious. This book tells the story of how, after playing professional basketball in Inner Mongolia, he met up with co-founder Mark Ames and started an independent newspaper that danced in the flames of Russia’s dying society. The result is a strange and incredible book: stories of seedy dive bars full of drugged-up loose women, intermixed with incredible feats of investigative journalism into the oligarchs dragging Russia down—without any change in tone. It’s wonderful.

  Joan Didion, Political Fictions

  Damn, this book is good. Nobody knows how to take a book and skewer it like Didion. The New York Review of Books pieces reprinted in here are simply some of the best eviscerations of any genre. It’s hard to imagine how people can walk after a review like that.

  Rick Perlstein, Nixonland

  Perlstein’s last book, Before the Storm, managed to turn the story of a largely dismissed political figure, Barry Goldwater, into a lesson on how the left can take over the country. Now, in Nixonland, he examines the turmoil of the 1960s with fresh eyes and the perfidy of the Nixon administration with new depth. I read the book as he was writing it and sent comments—apparently I was the first outside his home to finish it—and the final version hasn’t been published. But do be sure to pick it up as soon as it is.

  Lodge, Changing Places

  Typical campus novel fun, but with some great People’s Park stories.

  Poundstone, Fortune’s Formula

  Fantastic fun. Math, mafiosi, movies.

  Hoopes, False Prophets

  A wonderful series of profiles of the most prominent management theorists going back to slavery and Taylor. The book’s editorial line is a bit marred
by the inability of the author (a B-School prof and manager) to reconcile his belief that management power is unjust and that it is necessary. But solid history and good takedowns of some important figures.

  Wilson, To The Finland Station

  Really, really good. Edmund Wilson was the incredible writer you’d expect and this is his masterpiece.

  Maurer, The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man

  Luc Sante’s intro alone is worth the price of the book, but the rest of the book is fantastic as well. Everyone should know about con men. (The BBC’s Hustle is obviously a television adaptation of the book.)

  DFW, Consider the Lobster

  DFW’s suicide hit me very hard. I ended up coping by reading every piece of nonfiction he’d ever published. He was a brilliant, tortured man and I see so much of myself in him. His nonfiction was fantastic and I will consider my life a success if I can do half of what he did. . . .

  Love at Goon Park by Deborah Blum

  The first section is a (confessed!) retread of Becoming Attached, one of my very favorite books. But after that it gets much better and the interplay of animal and human stories is a lot of fun. I’ve been reading it to the five-year-old, who loves animal stories of all sorts, and she just laps it up. (I skip the incredibly dark parts, of course.)

  The Power Broker by Robert Caro

  I cannot possibly say enough good things about this book. Go read it. Right now. Yes, I know it’s long, but trust me, you’ll wish it was longer. I think it may be simply the best nonfiction book.

  The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces by William H. Whyte

  If Feynman was a sociologist, this is probably the book he’d write. A delightful little thing.

  American Apartheid by Douglass Massey and Nancy Denton

  This book is criminally under-publicized. Everyone has their own crazy theories about why it is that blacks are disadvantaged in our society. Massey and Denton show it’s much more obvious than any of that: they’re victims of extreme segregation, with all the negative effects that entails. An absolutely brilliant book.

  The Liberal Defence of Murder by Richard Seymour

  This book is like a little miracle. I’m not even sure how to describe it, except to say that it turns one’s understanding of history completely upside down.

  The Fox and the Hedgehog [The Hedgehog and the Fox by Isaiah Berlin – Ed.]

  Absolutely delightful.

  Bat Boy: The Musical

  If you ever get a chance, go see it. It’s the greatest musical ever.

  Bad Samaritans by Ha-joon Chang

  The best introduction to the real issues of globalization and international development.

  If You’re an Egalitarian, How Come You’re So Rich? by G. A. Cohen

  I really enjoyed this book. It starts with a simple thought experiment: imagine you had a long-lost identical twin who grew up in a conservative home and became a conservative. You, by contrast, grew up in a liberal home and became a liberal. Wouldn’t meeting him make you question your beliefs? And thus, shouldn’t the possibility that you could meet him make you question your beliefs? (I’m not totally convinced by this; my beliefs are much more shaken by converts—people who were strong believers in X but converted to believing in Y.)

  From this, Cohen heads to a reminiscence of his own upbringing, which I found especially touching, perhaps because he has the identity I wish I had: a Canadian communist in an antireligious Yiddish-speaking home. . . .

  Secrets by Daniel Ellsberg

  A fantastic book. Ellsberg turns out to be an incredible writer and he tells not only his own incredible story of the fight to release the Pentagon Papers (did you know the New York Times actually stole them from his house?), but, even more interestingly, recounts a great deal of fascinating personal experience about what it was like working with McNamara and Kissinger and trying to maintain your sanity in the highest levels of government. . . .

  Prince of the Marshes by Rory Stewart

  I occasionally have this fantasy, while reading the news, that whatever person I’m reading about has been fired and, through some miraculous fluke, I have been given their job. Would I make a hash of it? Or, would my naive mind and outsider’s expertise allow me to do it in a fascinating new way?

  In this book, Rory Stewart describes what happened when he was made a colonial governor of a province in Iraq. Brilliant fellow that he is, he does a remarkably good job all things considered, but also writes a questioning, soul-searching, fascinating book about the experience that highlights what an impossible task it really is.

  False Profits: Recovering from the Bubble Economy by Dean Baker

  A short, clear book on why the economy failed, who did it, and how to set it right by someone who was absolutely right about it all along. If you only want to read one book about the economic crisis, this would be an excellent choice.

  The Accidental Theorist by Paul Krugman

  A collection of Krugman’s columns for Slate. It was before he really came off his neoliberal high, but after he learned to write, so while they’re not always right, they’re almost always delightful (and Slate gave him a lot more freedom to be playful than the Times does). A very fun book about a wide range of issues in economics. . . .

  Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman

  Absolutely fantastic. Could hardly put it down. Chuck Klosterman is definitely in the running for greatest living essayist. The book is a collection of essays, but not, as far as I can tell, essays that were ever published anywhere else. They’re each just magical gems that fit together just perfectly. I even liked the stuff about football (and I’ve never seen a game of football).

  I liked this so much I went on to read all his other books in reverse chronological order.

  Why Not Socialism? by G. A. Cohen

  A great little book from the late philosopher Jerry Cohen. Not quite as great as his comments about the shmoos, but a wonderful (and, sadly, all too rare) attempt to get people thinking about what socialism really means and whether it would be practical.

  The Persistence of Poverty by Charles Karelis

  I feel like I’ve written so much about this book, but none of it appears to have made it to this blog. A great little book, just enough to explain one big idea and how it overturns what you think about classical economics and poverty and much else besides.

  Acme Novelty Library, #19 by Chris Ware

  Chris Ware is magic. This book consists mostly of a chapter from the work-in-progress Rusty Brown, which I was initially skeptical about, but turns out to be just amazingly great. And Building Stories is incredible too.

  Ware’s method is to publish a page each week or so in a weekly paper (the Sunday New York Times, the Chicago Reader), then redraw the entire chapter and send it out as an edition of the Novelty Library, then redraw it a third time when the entire book is published. So this is a way of getting intermediate results, but you could just wait for the final books themselves (if they are ever finished).

  Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

  Absolutely fantastic. A rare must-read novel—packed full of information about society, journalism, activism, race, etc. I can’t convey just how good it really is. It’s like The Power Broker of fiction.

  How to Win Friends and Influence People (reread) by Dale Carnegie

  There’s a reason this is a classic. It articulates a way of dealing with people, founded on concern and empathy, and convincingly argues that this kind style is actually the more productive one for getting things done. Instead of yelling at people to do things, you make them want to help you. And the book itself is a genius exemplar of this practice. Instead of berating you for being a jerk, like most people would, it persuades you to want to change.

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  Managing to Change the World by Allison Green and Jerry Hauser

  The best book on the practicalities of management I’ve ever read. Whereas most books focus on vague and meaningless advice, this book is clear about t
he nuts and bolts.

  Workers in a Labyrinth by Robert Jackall

  Not as great as my favorite book of all time, Jackall’s Moral Mazes, but a fascinating look at how normal people make sense of their daily work lives.

  The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them by Elif Batuman

  Hilarious, brilliant, fantastic. There’s no justification for this book being as good as it is. Even I wasn’t interested in reading a book about Russian literary scholars, but it’s just incredibly good and I’m glad I did.

  This Is Your Country on Drugs by Ryan Grim

  I would not have thought the world needed another book on drugs, but this one turns out to be basically perfect. Comprehensive, erudite, funny, and realistic—Grim definitely inhales.

  Microeconomics by Samuel Bowles

  A textbook that totally upends the field of classical economics. Sadly, it can be a bit hard to follow, but I wrote summaries of it here.

  All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays by George Orwell (with introduction by Keith Gessen)

  Orwell is magic.

  Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy by Barbara Ehrenreich

  Ehrenreich makes a convincing case for the ecstatic tradition in American life. My only regret is that it lacks a chapter on raves.

  The Lifecycle of Software Objects [online] by Ted Chiang

  Read it! Even people who know much more about sci-fi than me agree this is one of the great science fiction books of all time. It’s a novel about the ethical issues with AI.

  Short: Walking Tall When You’re Not Tall At All by John Schwartz

  Surely you’ve heard about the studies showing short people don’t make as much as tall people. John Schwartz set out to write a book to cheer kids up about this fact, but looking into them he found it wasn’t a fact at all. The result is a model of self-help through science and media criticism. Schwartz playfully teaches you enough math and science to be able to debunk the studies and enough personal advice to make a life on your own terms.

  The Halo Effect by Phil Rosenzweig