A few months ago, I challenged myself to watch all the James Bond films… and so did the author of The Man Who Saved Britain, however he did it as a result of growing up in England. This thoroughly entertaining book is a simultaneous memoir, history tome, and James Bond tribute. It attempts to place the suave spy in British history, claiming that the popularity largely stemmed from how the British empire — spanning multiple nations worldwide and with a technologically superior fighting force — fell apart after World War II, and looking for something to believe in, latched onto the macho myth that is Bond.

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This excellent history book recounts the world chess champion match betwen Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky in 1972, with Nixon as President and the United States and Russia submerged in the Cold War. Fischer the individualist American and Spassky the communist came to represent much more than merely two savants doing battle with wooden pieces on a checkerboard — this was yet another competitive confrontation between east and west.

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I occasionally pick up non-fiction, science books to see if my increasingly fuzzy brain can keep up with the concepts. With Beyond Reason, I could generally follow the logic, but the math formulas proving exactly why — completely went over my head. The book is an examination of the limits of science through eight ideas that are currently considered — for all practical purposes — impossible. Dewdney provides the historical context, a summary of the example, and then digs down into the math.

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This is the last title in William Poundstone’s secret spoiling series. It’s now out of print. I return to these books every once in a while to re-read this fun stuff. Here’s a short list of what bizarre, trivial information is in this one:

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Also an older title, I still enjoy re-reading this book from time to time. It’s also by William Poundstone and exposes information about things “they” don’t want you to know. Here’s a short list format summary of some of the topics in this one:

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