Looking for good, recently published libertarian book suggestions

Entertainment & Culture: Literature & Fiction

Rebecca Lau February 27, 2017 at 12:49 am

I’m looking for book suggestions. Books that you think may one day be considered classics in libertarian literature. No Mises, Rothbard, etc. Preferably published in the last 5-10 years. More recent is better.

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Roger Browne February 27, 2017 at 4:26 am

Oh, Ken Krawchuk’s “Atlas Snubbed” for sure.

It’s a great sequel to Atlas Shrugged, and at the same time a superb parody of it. And a cracking good story too.

Buy the full version, not the cheaper version, which is missing too much.

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D. Jason Fleming March 2, 2017 at 2:07 pm

Sounds like you’re asking for nonfiction, but my recommendation is fiction: Sarah A. Hoyt’s Darkship series. The first is the excellent Darkship Thieves, which won a Prometheus Award. Following that are Darkship Renegade, A Few Good Men, Through Fire, and the upcoming (and also excellent — she’s a friend of mine, so I got to read it in draft) Darkship Revenge.

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Ken Jons-un March 2, 2017 at 3:38 pm

@marcoouden wrote a fun SciFi novella titled Jokk Vetes Diary, you can find it on Amazon Kindle

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  Marco den Ouden March 2, 2017 at 5:56 pm
  
  You actually bought a copy, Ken? Thank you. Now I’ve sold two copies!
  
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    Ken Jons-un March 3, 2017 at 9:52 am
    
    I’ll bet you have more than 2 sales. Lovely theme and creative way you chose to work with it. Can’t wait for the technology to become reality.
    
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Rick Rule March 2, 2017 at 5:38 pm

For easy fiction reading, but with an edge, Doug Casey’s recent novel ” Speculator” is fun. Given Doug’s notoriety, it will get read, too.

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  john hunt March 4, 2017 at 4:04 pm
  
  Thanks Rick. The sequel to Speculator is coming soon (July). It’s titled Drug Lord. Drug is doing another revision run through currently. I hope that Rebecca picks up on the series. It is a good education as well. (for disclosure, I’m Doug’s coauthor in the High Ground novels.)
  john
  
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    Greg Altenberger March 6, 2017 at 7:47 am
    
    Speculator was great! I love the idea of the series, all “undefendable” occupations. 🙂 Thanks John! Looking forward to Drug Lord.
    
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Tony Corrie March 4, 2017 at 5:06 pm

Mark Tier’s Trust Your Enemies, an Australian political thriller is one of the best modern novels with a libertarian theme I’ve read, while Ken Macleod’s Fall Revolution series are a science-fiction series with an anarcho-capitalist bent if that’s your flavour.

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Tom Liberman March 4, 2017 at 7:22 pm

Hi, Rebecca

If you’re fond of Sword and Sorcery with a Libertarian ideology then I’ve got just the author for you 🙂

https://www.amazon.com/Tom-Liberman/e/B004HQPRXS

Just a thought and only $2.99 each (why not get all nine?). Tenth one in the final editing stages.

Tom

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Will Smith April 11, 2017 at 8:05 pm

This is an underrated but very recent book that mostly fits the criteria you laid out: https://www.libertarianism.org/books/political-philosophy-introduction

Available in audio, PDF, and physical formats. It’s the best primer on the topic I know of (I’ve read several that are geared toward the same subject).

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  Rebecca Lau April 15, 2017 at 4:21 pm
  
  Thanks. I’ll check out all the free ebooks on the site. They all look really interesting.
  
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Richard Masta April 14, 2017 at 7:59 pm

Wow not much going on for modern nonfic classics huh?

Speculator was fun, good fast paced read. I think the subsequent books will be better.

I’ve found a lot of value in Prosper by Martenson/Taggart which is a general outline of strategies for achieving more freedom in life. I’d like to read their book The Crash Course, which is their take on how economy, energy, and environment are all being manipulated by the state and corporate collusion. There is a three hour video series summarizing the crash course that is very worth watching, for an Austrian spin on modern issues from the POV of someone who doesn’t grovel at Rothbard’s feet.

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Craig Spencer April 14, 2017 at 9:02 pm

Cómo hablar con un progre

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Rebecca Lau April 15, 2017 at 3:28 pm

I guess I should have made it clearer that I wanted non-fiction books, like books written by actual economists. I’ve been trying to read more libertarian works so this is what I’ve been reading since I posted.

Government Gone Wild by Kristen Tate

I got this for my birthday last year. I’ve never heard of the author. Her writing style reminds me of Meg Cabot (author of the Princess Diaries) because she uses a lot of pop culture references in her writing. I generally agreed with everything she said but this isn’t really the type of book I’m looking for. It’s more of a primer to libertarian ideas and focuses a lot on government spending. I’m going to gift this to a younger libertarian.

Age of Em by Robin Hanson

I bought this book after seeing him debate Bryan Caplan in NYC. Hanson is a professor at George Mason University. The book is about a future where people will make copies of their brains instead of living in human bodies. Spoiler alert, the future doesn’t bode well for anyone that isn’t smart, rich, and white. Actually a really terrifying book when you think about it, even though Hanson is cheerful about it.

Discover Your Inner Economist by Tyler Cowen

I’m on the waiting list for The Complacent Class at the library so I got this in the meantime. I just started reading it so I don’t have an opinion yet. I like reading “pop” economics books.

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  Richard Masta April 15, 2017 at 3:33 pm
  
  Glad you mentioned the complacent class. That’s on my list, but lists are long things. I’ve also been kicking around Buchanan’s Suicide of a Superpower which is a few yrs old, but apparently argues that the US needs to split up already — though I suspect his conservative spin will cantanker me.
  
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  Maazin Niyyar April 28, 2017 at 6:04 pm
  
  http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/360/pg360.txt
  
  http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/23428/pg23428.txt
  
  http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4341/pg4341.txt
  
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john hunt October 7, 2017 at 7:20 pm

Doug Casey (and my) book Drug Lord just came out. Solid fiction with sound economic and social foundation, but sufficiently subtle and definitely not predictable. Happy to send you a copy. Just holler.

Best

john

John Hunt, MD

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