Lawrence Lessig and his literature...

grogbash

Lately I have become more interested in Lawrence Lessig, his ideas and way of displaying them via blog. It looks as if he has a few books written and I was wondering if anybody has any recomendations as to which book of his to pick up first.

http://lessig.org/info/bio/

Thanks for your help

MengerSponge

The only one I've completely read is Free Culture, his latest, and it is excellent. It's probably the most interesting for a lot of people, as it deals a lot with issues that the average consumer and computer user would encounter, and seems very accessible.

I'm also currently working through The Future of Ideas, which is (in my opinion) about as interesting, and talks about how a few companies/groups of companies are getting too much control over new technologies, and how that will hamper innovation.

I'd probably start with Free Culture just because it's the one everyone talks about, but really they're all worth reading (at least the two I mentioned, and probably his first book too). They're not that long, and are not difficult reads.

seasleepy

I'd also probably recommend Free Culture to read first.
But if you're really not sure which book to start with, it's worth noting that 3 of his books (everything except the original version of Code) are available online in PDF form for free. If you look at his blog, he's got links to download on the book images near the top. It's also worth noting that in the case of Free Culture, there are a lot of free "remixes" including ebooks or HTML with linked footnotes or audiobooks.

jotate

Coincidentally, there's a current discussion going on in the D&D forum about Lessig and his potential appointment to Obama's Secretary of Technology position, if you're interested.

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=50914

grogbash

Thanks for the suggestions and I was not aware that some (all?) of his books were free. And as for the debate....I'll start catching up and see if I can contribute.