“What mostly happens in disasters is, they're the moment in which the background refrigerator hum of petty grievance stops and leaves behind this ringing silence in which you realize that you have much more in common with your neighbours than you ever had as a point of difference.”  
- Cory Doctorow

Books discussed:

Radicalized by Cory Doctorow

Walkaway by Cory Doctorow

Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars by Daniel Pinkwater (ebook unavailable, so try Lizard Music instead)

A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit

Afterland  by Lauren Beukes  (ebook coming soon)

Or What You Will  by Jo Walton (coming soon)

The Thessaly Series by Jo Walton (Series about Plato's Republic)

Lent by Jo Walton (one of the books about Florence)

Books by Ada Palmer

Other topics discussed:

The Wonderful Power of Storytelling - speech by Bruce Sterling 

craphound.com (Cory Doctorow's website)