With the contentious 2016 U.S. presidential election cycle spinning into its final phases, only one thing seems clear: the American people are less than satisfied with the two major political parties’ candidates. Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party candidate for president and former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico, stakes his claim to the very center of the political spectrum. His new e-pamphlet Common Sense for the Common Good offers his approach to how a member of a third party, acting as the Chief Arbiter of the U.S., can restore sanity and functionality to the highest office in the land. Johnson succinctly shares his views on how the two-party system is dysfunctional. How its binary approach to issues doesn’t reflect the multiplicity of viewpoints inherent in our contemporary society. How the nasty divisiveness that rules public and private discourse is endemic to this flawed and outdated system. He offers his alternative to the dualistic electoral process—and why he believes the on/off, black/white, I’m right/you’re wrong thinking—cripples our minds and grinds government to a halt. He takes on the challenge of explaining Libertarianism as a philosophy that espouses: Freedom of choice Limited government intrusion into our personal lives Free market capitalism Equalizing opportunity for all This e-pamphlet sets the stage for Johnson’s forthcoming book, which is part memoir and part manifesto. In just 50 pages he describes his own personal and political evolution. He firmly believes that, if the rigged electoral polling and debate processes were fair, the vast majority of Americans would come to understand that their beliefs and values are best represented by the Libertarian Party.

A book about common sense, what it is, how to make it, and how to put it into practice across all contexts of leadership and life

Robert B. Reich makes a powerful case for the expansion of America’s moral imagination. Rooting his argument in common sense and everyday reality, he demonstrates that a common good constitutes the very essence of any society or nation. Societies, he says, undergo virtuous cycles that reinforce the common good as well as vicious cycles that undermine it, one of which America has been experiencing for the past five decades. This process can and must be reversed. But first we need to weigh the moral obligations of citizenship and carefully consider how we relate to honor, shame, patriotism, truth, and the meaning of leadership. Powerful, urgent, and utterly vital, this is a heartfelt missive from one of our foremost political thinkers.

Identity crises, consumerism, and star-crossed teenage love in a futuristic society where people connect to the Internet via feeds implanted in their brains. Winner of the LA Times Book Prize. For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon - a chance to party during spring break and play around with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who knows something about what it’s like to live without the feed-and about resisting its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires. Following in the footsteps of George Orwell, Anthony Burgess, and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., M. T. Anderson has created a brave new world - and a hilarious new lingo - sure to appeal to anyone who appreciates smart satire, futuristic fiction laced with humor, or any story featuring skin lesions as a fashion statement.

Award-winning author Philip K. Howard lays out the blueprint for a new American society. In this brief and powerful book, Philip K. Howard attacks the failed ideologies of both parties and proposes a radical simplification of government to re-empower Americans in their daily choices. Nothing will make sense until people are free to roll up their sleeves and make things work. The first steps are to abandon the philosophy of correctness and our devotion to mindless compliance. Americans are a practical people. They want government to be practical. Washington can’t do anything practically. Worse, its bureaucracy prevents Americans from doing what’s sensible. Conservative bluster won’t fix this problem. Liberal hand-wringing won’t work either. Frustrated voters reach for extremist leaders, but they too get bogged down in the bureaucracy that has accumulated over the past century. Howard shows how America can push the reset button and create simpler frameworks focused on public goals where officials—prepare for the shock—are actually accountable for getting the job done.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “We need a new idea of how to govern. The current system is broken. Law is supposed to be a framework for humans to make choices, not the replacement for free choice.” So notes Philip K. Howard in the new Afterword to his explosive manifesto The Death of Common Sense. Here Howard offers nothing less than a fresh, lucid, practical operating system for modern democracy. America is drowning—in law, lawsuits, and nearly endless red tape. Before acting or making a decision, we often abandon our best instincts. We pause, we worry, we equivocate, and then we divert our energy into trying to protect ourselves. Filled with one too many examples of bureaucratic overreach, The Death of Common Sense demonstrates how we—and our country—can at last get back on track.

Common sense has always been a cornerstone of American politics. In 1776, Tom Paine’s vital pamphlet with that title sparked the American Revolution. And today, common sense—the wisdom of ordinary people, knowledge so self-evident that it is beyond debate—remains a powerful political ideal, utilized alike by George W. Bush’s aw-shucks articulations and Barack Obama’s down-to-earth reasonableness. But far from self-evident is where our faith in common sense comes from and how its populist logic has shaped modern democracy. Common Sense: A Political History is the first book to explore this essential political phenomenon. The story begins in the aftermath of England’s Glorious Revolution, when common sense first became a political ideal worth struggling over. Sophia Rosenfeld’s accessible and insightful account then wends its way across two continents and multiple centuries, revealing the remarkable individuals who appropriated the old, seemingly universal idea of common sense and the new strategic uses they made of it. Paine may have boasted that common sense is always on the side of the people and opposed to the rule of kings, but Rosenfeld demonstrates that common sense has been used to foster demagoguery and exclusivity as well as popular sovereignty. She provides a new account of the transatlantic Enlightenment and the Age of Revolutions, and offers a fresh reading on what the eighteenth century bequeathed to the political ferment of our own time. Far from commonsensical, the history of common sense turns out to be rife with paradox and surprise.

Eddie Ghabour, financial media personality and author of The Common-Sense Bull sees growth plus Opportunity in 2019 stock market for baby boomers. I WANTED people to grasp a sense of building their best retirement plan – what specifically they wanted and needed in retirement because, in many ways, I’ve built a very successful practice and life by being deliberate about what I wanted. I can help them focus. For some people, their dream is a lot of travel and exploration of hobbies throughout retirement. For others, it’s about preservation of capital while they maintain a simple but happy routine near home. Advisors who read the book will realize there is more to financial or retirement planning than getting a particular’s clients’ affairs in order to meet their minimum requirements over the next 20 – 30 years. I want advisors to take a stand about who they are and how to incorporate their income skills into their daily practice. For me, it’s been my roots in Slower, Lower Delaware that defines who I am while still making sure that my message gets out nationally to baby boomers through my workshops and national public relations interviews. People should be able to retire without feeling as if they need to “get out of the markets” entirely. The common sense bull puts it all into perspective understanding when you can be bullish, when to “buy” when opportunity presents itself, and when to rely on a broader sense of stock market history.

First published in 1986. In this thought-provoking book the widely acclaimed thinker and activist, Marcus Raskin, moves beyond the limits and failures of socialism and capitalism to an original theory of social reconstruction for a humane society. Presenting concrete alternatives for education, health, economics and national security he develops a new conception of democracy and the rule of law in relation to our common good. A political and philosophic tool designed for those who search for alternatives in their lives and in the world, The Common Good shows how to organize for social reconstruction, the type of leadership now required, and the importance of restoring progress as a political purpose. Defining politics as broader than the mere manifestation of power, Raskin’s vision helps the left and liberals find their way towards a new public philosophy and program.