The Show-Me Institute sponsors a biweekly book club primarily directed to Saint Louis–area college students (and college-age non-students) who are interested in exploring a broad spectrum of the ideas of liberty. The institute and its scholars do not necessarily agree with or advocate the ideas contained in the books selected for use in the club; rather, the institute hopes to encourage critical analysis, debate, and discussion of a wide range of thought about freedom and free-market economic perspectives.

Anybody interested in participating in the book club should contact the Show-Me Institute's editor to receive announcements about upcoming book selections and meeting times.

To date, the club has read and discussed the following books (except for those at the top of the list marked as "current" or "forthcoming"):

2010:

Forthcoming, March/April — Peter McWilliams, Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Society
Current Reading — Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement

2009:

Roy A. Childs, Jr., Liberty Against Power
Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson
Jeff Benedict, Little Pink House: A True Story of Defiance and Courage
Robert A. Levy and William Mellor, The Dirty Dozen: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom
Auberon Herbert, The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State, and Other Essays
Tom G. Palmer, Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice
Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement
Jerome Tuccille, It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand
Burton W. Folsom, The Myth of the Robber Barons: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America
Thomas J. DiLorenzo, How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold History of Our Country, From the Pilgrims to the Present
Frederic Bastiat, Selected Essays on Political Economy
David T. Beito, From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890–1967
Mark Skousen, Vienna & Chicago, Friends or Foes? A Tale of Two Schools of Free-Market Economics
Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism: The Classical Tradition
Lysander Spooner, The Lysander Spooner Reader

2008:

Milton Friedman, Money Mischief: Episodes in Monetary History
Leonard E. Read, Anything That's Peaceful
David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism
Rose Wilder Lane, The Discovery of Freedom: Man's Struggle Against Authority
Thomas Sowell, Economic Facts and Fallacies
Albert Jay Nock, Our Enemy, The State: A Study of Social Power vs. State Power and of The State in Colonial America
Tibor R. Machan, ed., Individual Rights Reconsidered: Are the Truths of the U.S. Declaration of Independence Lasting?
Robert Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government
Carl Watner, ed., I Must Speak Out: The Best of The Voluntaryist, 1982–1999
James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy
Barry Goldwater, The Conscience of a Conservative
Randy Barnett, Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty
Bertrand de Jouvenel, The Ethics of Redistribution
Ludwig von Mises, Bureaucracy
F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom

2007:

Isabel Paterson, The God of the Machine
Johan Norberg, In Defense of Global Capitalism
Leon Kass, Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics
Ronald Bailey, Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution
David Boaz, Libertarianism: A Primer
Virginia Postrel, The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress
W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm, Myths of Rich and Poor: Why We're Better Off Than We Think
Richard Epstein, How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution
Larry Lessig, Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity
Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia

2006:

Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness
David Schoenbrod, Saving Our Environment From Washington: How Congress Grabs Power, Shirks Responsibility, and Shortchanges the People
F.A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty
Frederic Bastiat, That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen: The Unintended Consequences of Government Spending
Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
David Friedman, Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do With Law and Why It Matters
Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty