Interested in your best recommendations--books with good, mainstream-targeted content (less technical/theoretical, more example/historical based) dealing with regulatory failures, deregulation successes, historical examples of deregulated industries functioning successfully, and so on. Something similar to the regulation part of Tom Woods’ Rollback (towards the end), or Meltdown, etc. If there isn’t a single book focusing on just this topic, recommendations for certain chapters of a number of books works too!
Main purpose is to refer others to them, so the shorter (less verbose) the better. Newer (with recent examples) is better too.
I doubt there's a single book focusing on just this subject, but I wish there was...
I like to start with this link:
http://www.cato.org/research/articles/cpr28n4-1.html
I think that Gabriel Kolko's Triumph of Conservativism is good because it shows the unholy alliance between Bootleggers and Baptists and it shows how regulation benefits Big Business.
If you're looking for a nice little read on the subject then try this one. This is especially great if you want to refer someone else to it because of its simplicity.
A quick search on the site turned up this, but I can't attest to its quality but it's a short read. You can also point to the inherent failures of antitrust legislation, as well as how royally the U.S government screwed up and caused the great depression (and for your purposes prolonged it with intervention), and finally how the government's policy of supporting intellectual property rights has harmed millions, especially in the internet age.
And finally this is probably the best resource that I can give to you. It's honestly arguably one of the all around books for modern policy prescription, great book and I advise everyone read it.
Hope that helps.
Thomas Sowell has written a number of books on the subject, all presented for a general audience. Basic Economics is the standard, however, it is in its 5th edition and has grown quite thick, so it may be useful for information research and argumentation, but it might not be the best thing to give to a friend right away. Applied Economics and Economic Facts and Fallacies are a bit more managable.
The Economics of Public Issues is also quite good, especially considering it's a textbook (although quite small). It's generally assigned as supplemental reading in an economics course. My copy is actually the twelfth edition, and I see now it's in the seventeenth, but I doubt the fundamentals have changed. (certainly not enough to make it a bad book). Although it's certainly prepared (and therefore at times reads) like a textbook, it's an excellent introduction to economic concepts using real world examples.