[raisins]

One of my favorite books is about the life and work of conceptual artist Robert Irwin. The book is mostly about art and an artist who is looking to go beyond the pictorial. He is very interested in the nature of perception so there is material in there that touches on psychology and philosophy. Robert Irwin also supported himself for a good portion of his life by playing the horses and there is a chapter with his thoughts on gambling that is probably the most interesting writing I've ever come across on gambling, not that it will necessarily improve your game but his take is unique.

I second the recommendation for Fooled by Randomness. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is probably known to you but it must be mentioned. The Market Wizards series is good reading as well.

The Crowd and Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds are both (mass) psychology books that are also about the market. For straight psychology I would read Uncommon Therapy which is about Milton Erickson. I think hypnosis is an important and perhaps understated phenomenon in psychology. Two good books on it are Therapeutic Trances by Stephen Gilligan and Trancework by Michael Yapko.

You know who the mainstays in philosophy are. My advice is to read the ones who are good writers (Plato, Nietzsche) and get the rest through commentaries. Bernard Williams is a modern philosopher who is a good writer and stands outside of the recent stream of literary criticism / post-modernism. The article on him in Wikipedia is pretty good and will let you know if you would be interested in him. Another article that gives a good presentation of him is his obituary by the classicist Martha Nussbaum; it is available on the web. For philosophy more in the sense of "worldly wisdom" here are some authors: Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Heraclitus, Lao Tsu (I agree with the Stephen Mitchell translation recommendation), Baltasar Gracian, Francois de la Rochefoucauld.

For math, I haven't read it yet but I've heard some good things about Who is Foruier?

For backgammon you know about Magriel and Robertie. In a recent thread Robertie recommended Classic Backgammon Revisited by Bagai to me. Some day I'll have the opportunity to get into it.

That enough books?

regards,

raisins