Bobby Fischer Goes to War

David Edmunds and John Eidinow

Excellent book about the former world chess champion Bobby Fischer's 1972 match with Boris Spassky in Iceland. It is set in context of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. Of course, it gives good descriptions of their personalities.

Freakonomics (A new best seller)

by Steven Levitt

I thought it was going to be more about the economics of things that we normally don't think about but it ended up being more about parenting. Even though I mostly agree about what he talked about - I really wanted to read a book about the economics about things we normally don't talk about for example in one section he talks about how one guy has a business selling bagels in which he leaves a box where people simply leave their money. What percentage of people cheat?

My Goodness!

by Joe Queenan

Very funny book about a writer (a journalist who mainly writes satirical columns) who decides to become a very nice angelic-type of person and the "problems" and conflicts that he runs into when he tries to "clean up his act." My only criticism is that he sometimes goes on too long in his lists, e.g. bad thing that he has written about people or lists of "bad" things that he has done, etc.

Fiction

These books captured me right away and they were very hard to put down.

(The Complete) Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
The First Circle - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The Singing Detective - Dennis Potter