ANNOUNCING 2nd ANNUAL LAVA AWARD WINNERS

On Friday June 23, 2012 the second annual LAVA Awards were presented during the Porcupine Freedom Festival in Lancaster, New Hampshire. The LAVA Awards were designed to recognize books that promote the ideas of Libertarians, Agorists, Voluntaryists & Anarchs from various classes & categories as well as the Charles Angrand Award for best artwork and the Lysander Spooner Award for book of the year. Thanks to a growth in the number of entries, LAVA was able to recognize a fiction and non-fiction winner as well as the Charles Angrand Award for artwork and the Lysander Spooner Book of the Year Award. Entries were judged by a combination of authors, editors & publishers.

Withur We by Matthew Bruce Alexander won the LAVA Award in the fiction category.

One judge commented, Withur We is "(a) beautifully written explanation of anarcho-capitalism, without being overly didactic or so steeped in philosophy that the plot suffers."

The LAVA Award for non-fiction was won by Darryl W. Perry for Duopoly: How the Republicrats Control the Electoral Process.

"While I don’t think that voting will change anything, I might be wrong," writes one judge, "Perry challenges my assertions. I think that the parachute of the open mind just dragged me back onto the fence regarding the issue of voting."

The Charles Angrand Award for best artwork was awarded to Ken Schoolland for his book The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey. The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible tells the story of a boy who becomes shipwrecked on an unfamiliar island after being swept out to sea in a storm.

Having previously lived in a relatively free society, in this new strange land he experiences culture shock as he learns learns of bewildering laws and traditions of the islands inhabitants. The story highlights the absurdities of the laws, the controls imposed on people’s lives, and the economic drawbacks of these laws.

The laws highlighted are recognizable as common to many countries throughout the world. As the story unfolds, the part individuals in society play in political decision-making and personal responsibility is introduced for discussion.

The Lysander Spooner (Book of the Year) Award was awarded to a book described as: "A real classic of libertarian thought for the modern age." It is with great pleasure that I announce the Lysander Spooner Book Of the Year Award has been awarded to Dr. Mary Ruwart for her international best-seller Healing Our World in an Age of Aggression. All award winning books are available from Amazon.com and major book stores nationwide.