In 2006, the comedian Dominic Frisby began to question the advice his financial advisers were giving him and began to look after his own money. He was fascinated by the world of finance. Mad though his friends and family thought him at the time, he put everything he owned into gold, which subsequently appreciated by several hundred per cent. Soon MoneyWeek were asking him to write a weekly column and he began seven years of obsessive reading and study. Life After the State is the culmination of that process. Just as Frisby saw the financial crash of 2008 coming, he now sees another one, even more calamitous, headed our way – only this one has serious political ramifications as well. But not one high-profile politician, economist or journalist seems to 'get it' – because not one of them has correctly identified the cause of the problem. For Frisby, the problem is the State. In every instance where government gets involved in people's lives with a desire to do good, it can always be relied on to make the situation much, much worse. Yet despite this reality, we all seem to imagine that a world without the state would be a wild and terrifying place. With wit and devastating clarity of argument, Frisby shows that human nature proves the opposite to be true. Combining the paradigm-busting wisdom of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan with the readable charm of Freakonomics, Life After the State is a book that will change the way you think about money, education, healthcare and social justice for ever.

Privacy, which digital citizens eagerly relinquish, is not so essential to the health and welfare of democracy after all.

Imagine if you felt out of step with every other member of the parent association at your kid's school, your quilting circle, or even your workout group. What if casual conversations revolved around Fox News and the decline of American values? How would you feel if you were afraid to put a political bumper sticker on your car or had to think twice about what liberal posts you liked on Facebook? These are just some of the experiences shared by liberals across twenty states and five time zones who tell their stories with honesty, warmth, and humor. Most of us have to “talk across the aisle” once or twice a year—when we're seated next to our conservative out-of-town uncle at Thanksgiving, say. But millions of self- identified liberals live in cities and towns—particularly away from the East and West Coasts—where they are regularly outnumbered and outvoted by conservatives. In this uplifting and completely original book, Justin Krebs, the founder of the national Living Liberally network, speaks with and tells the stories of atheists, vegetarians, environmentalists, pacifists, and old-fashioned liberals—a term he is intent on rehabilitating—from Texas to Idaho, South Carolina to Alaska. Krebs weaves these stories together to create a provocative and rollicking taxonomy of strategies for living in a diverse society, with lessons for every participant in our great democratic experiment.

'Robert Almeder has clearly summarized an extensive body of evidence and argues its merits with the skill of a professional philosopher.'--Ian Stevenson, M.D., University of Virginia, Health Sciences Center

In 2006, the comedian Dominic Frisby began to question the advice his financial advisers were giving him and began to look after his own money. He was fascinated by the world of finance. Mad though his friends and family thought him at the time, he put everything he owned into gold, which subsequently appreciated by several hundred per cent. Soon MoneyWeek were asking him to write a weekly column and he began seven years of obsessive reading and study. Life After the State is the culmination of that process. Just as Frisby saw the financial crash of 2008 coming, he now sees another one, even more calamitous, headed our way - only this one has serious political ramifications as well. But not one high-profile politician, economist or journalist seems to 'get it' - because not one of them has correctly identified the cause of the problem. For Frisby, the problem is the State. In every instance where government gets involved in people's lives with a desire to do good, it can always be relied on to make the situation much, much worse. Yet despite this reality, we all seem to imagine that a world without the state would be a wild and terrifying place. With wit and devastating clarity of argument, Frisby shows that human nature proves the opposite to be true. Combining the paradigm-busting wisdom of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan with the readable charm of Freakonomics, Life After the State is a book that will change the way you think about money, education, healthcare and social justice for ever.

"You. The Real State of Life," by Austin Bergman, Realist and Luxury Real Estate Mogul, provides a shockingly honest account of his life after he finally said two words: "I'm gay." It's easy to shrink into someone else's expectations of who YOU should be. While society, family, friends and colleagues are influential, their roles in your life do not include dictating who YOU are destined to be. The self-made millionaire was unhappily married and miserably gay. His life transitioned from being embraced by those who accepted his straight lie to being resented for finally living his truth. Austin risked it all when he tore up the contract on his "white picket fence" life and drafted a new agreement based on his terms and conditions. Nevertheless, during the darkest hours of his life, he lost everything [so he thought]. In the end, he discovered true peace, authentic happiness, and the real Austin Bergman.

From one of contemporary literature’s bestselling, critically acclaimed, and beloved authors: a “luminous” novel (Jennifer Egan, The New York Times Book Review) about a fiercely compelling young widow navigating grief, fear, and longing, and finding her own voice—“heartrendingly transcendant” (The New York Times, Janet Maslin). Set in Wexford, Ireland, Colm Tóibín’s magnificent seventh novel introduces the formidable, memorable, and deeply moving Nora Webster. Widowed at forty, with four children and not enough money, Nora has lost the love of her life, Maurice, the man who rescued her from the stifling world to which she was born. And now she fears she may be sucked back into it. Wounded, selfish, strong-willed, clinging to secrecy in a tiny community where everyone knows your business, Nora is drowning in her own sorrow and blind to the suffering of her young sons, who have lost their father. Yet she has moments of stunning insight and empathy, and when she begins to sing again, after decades, she finds solace, engagement, a haven—herself. Nora Webster “may actually be a perfect work of fiction” (Los Angeles Times), by a “beautiful and daring” writer (The New York Times Book Review) at the zenith of his career, able to “sneak up on readers and capture their imaginations” (USA TODAY). “Miraculous...Tóibín portrays Nora with tremendous sympathy and understanding” (Ron Charles, The Washington Post).