There are a number of good recommendations for big books, but getting those only mildly interested to read something that big is usually very tough.
For that reason, I'm working on one that should be under 50 pages; it's not strictly libertarian, though it focuses on the philosophy of liberty and uses it as a lens to look at today. Here's a synopsis.
First, we challenge the old bonds with Question Authority. Then we define the concept of self-ownership. Groups of individuals form societies, so that's naturally next. Societies create governments, supposedly for benign reasons, but then we find that at the core, government is force. Next, we discuss the growth of government, and why it grows in general. Then we look at the specific areas of the nanny state, status quo enforcement, redistribution, and foreign meddling. We show how government and media control the worldview we hold and the vocabulary we use to discuss government, thereby defining the terms of the discussion. We break from the orthodoxy of believing "anyone can be president" by showing how government self-selects for people who seek power over others. And we wrap up with a number of suggestions for wresting control from the elite class of professional politicians and bureaucrats and returning it to the individual.
It will be a dozen short essays, each short enough to finish on the average trip to the john. Lots of people do their reading there. (Should also be good for commuters.)
Should I do a thread here and post the essays as they are finished?
