Any good recent non-fiction books out there from you chess-folk? Besides the Bible??? :P Below ae some I'm reading/read from cognitive-science/cognitve psychology bent. Any good political spin or economics stuff out there lately?
 
I highly recommend 'I Am A Strange Loop' - Douglas Hofstadter. Absolutely more comprehensible,assessible, and mature than G-E-B. I do believe this will become a classic, but doesn't have that wide a readership -- yet.
 
'The Stuff of Thought' - Stephen Pinker. If you've read 'The Language Instinct' you're a Pinker fan.
 
'The Numerati'- Stephen Baker --- because you can read it in one sitting, seriously :). The author interviews various experts in the field of machine learning as it applies to marketing consumers. I was interested because all the algorithms i had to learn fourth year ( support vector machines, neural nets, bayes classifiers, gaussian classifiers, markov chains (for reinforcemnt Q-learning)all seem to be used by these companies. btw..all these can be implemented/trained with MATlab. Nothing mysterious...
 

The following 'cut & paste,' {"How to Talk to Girls"} would be an excellent example of a book that came out about 50 years Too Late, for my own reading enjoyment, and life's application!
 
.. Were I to read it now, {as an almost 58 yr.-old bachelor}; I suspect that there would be too many negative & backward looking feelings of, 'woulda-shoulda-coulda'; With the additional negative 'kicker' feeling of; 'If I {and many others}, only had some way of correctly analyzing this, 'way back when'!
 
Anotherwords, it's the quite rare 8-9 year old, who is both introspective, and intuitively knowledgeable, Re. how to address this, & other {personal} problems; {assuming, that they Are, in fact, 'problems'!?}, that invaribly 'crop up,' at that relatively early-stage in life!
 

December 2, 2008 --{newyorkpost}
He's only 9, but this pint-sized pickup artist already knows plenty about pleasing the ladies.
 
So much, in fact, that Alec Greven's dating primer, "How to Talk to Girls" - which began as a handwritten, $3 pamphlet sold at his school book fair - hit the shelves nationwide last week.
 
PHOTOS: Nine-Year-Old Gives Dating Advice {see, Dec. 2, '08 new york post, online}.
 
The fourth-grader from Castle Rock, Colo., advises Lothario wannabes to stop showing off, go easy on the compliments to avoid looking desperate - and be wary of "pretty girls."
 
"It is easy to spot pretty girls because they have big earrings, fancy dresses and all the jewelry," he writes in Chapter Three.
 
"Pretty girls are like cars that need a lot of oil."
 
He advises, "The best choice for most boys is a regular girl. Remember, some pretty girls are coldhearted when it comes to boys. Don't let them get to you."
 
Over a few Shirley Temples yesterday at Langan's on West 47 Street, Alec said that he culled his wisdom by peeking at his peers at play.
 
"I saw a lot of boys that had trouble talking to girls," Alec said.
 
As for his how-to, he concedes, "I never expected people to buy it like a regular book in a bookstore."
 
But with classic plain-spoken advice - like "comb your hair and don't wear sweats" - it's no surprise his 46-page book was a hit with boys and girls of all ages.
 
He believes the best way to approach a girl is to keep it to a simple "hi."
 
"If I say hi and you say hi back, we're probably off to a good start," he said.
 
As for his own love life, he said he is not dating anyone at the moment. "I'm a little too young," he confessed.
 
In his book, published by HarperCollins, he suggests holding off on falling in love until at least middle school.
 
Dating - which he defines as going out to dinner without your parents - is for "kind of old" people, who are 15 or 16.
 
Officials at the Soaring Hawk Elementary School said he wrote the book - which was the runaway bestseller at its book fair - for kids, but believe anyone can find inspiration in it.
 
Alec's mother, Erin Greven, credits her son's beyond-his-years insight to his avid reading.
 
"He reads nonstop. At dinner, I say, 'Put your book down,' " she said.
 
Alec - who just finished a children's book on the Watergate scandal - said he wants to be a full-time writer when he grows up, with a weekend job in archaeology or paleontology.
 

I say read "double tag team vic"