Some of my favorite books (in no particular order) are:

Founding Brothers – Joseph Ellis

Joseph Ellis’s Pulitzer Prize winning book about the revolutionary generation and what made them so special.  A must read for anyone who loves this country.  Six vignettes that eloquently relate the real heroes of our founding.  I love the language in this book.

Crimes Against Logic – Jamie Whyte

You really should know how to think, and be able to tell when other people don’t.  Don’t let people fool you into thinking they’re right by commonly employed, yet always intellectually lazy, fallacious arguments.  This book is great for understanding how seemingly smart people deceive themselves and others.

Legal Writing in Plain English – Bryan A. Garner

If you need to write anything that needs to be read you should get this book.  It’s not helpful for just legal writing, but will make you a better communicator on paper.  My favorite tips:  Use active voice, end emphatically, short sentences, and short paragraphs.

The Looming Tower – Lawrence Wright

These Al Qaeda bastards are scary.  Another Pulitzer Prize winner, this is about the history of Islamic terrorists.  If we ever hope to defeat them, we need to understand them.

The Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell

How the next big thing became the next big thing when people actually talked to each other (Before Myspace and Facebook).  A great book for understanding trends.

Bowling Alone – Robert D. Putnam

"If you don’t go to somebody’s funeral, they won’t come to yours." – Yogi Berra.  This book is an excellent read on how society is breaking down because we read each other’s blogs instead of talking to each other face-to-face.  I bought this book because I saw the author speaking on Book-TV (CSPAN) and was captivated by his thesis.  If you want to understand more about society, read this book.

The Bell Curve – Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray

While this book was ridiculed as racist when it first came out, the chapter on race takes up less than 10% of the book.  The real theme here is, what if the biggest factor in determining success is raw IQ?  The logical extension is, what should we do with stupid people?  This book will change the way you think about social problems forever.

Fooled by Randomness – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Once in a lifetime events happen all the time.  Don’t get tricked into believing that “no one could have foreseen this happening.”  Did you know that 9/11 was predicted on the pilot episode of an X-Files spin-off?  The point is, the most certain thing in the world is uncertainty; probabilistic thinking helps people profit (or at least cope) from tragedy.  Do you have a backup plan to tie your shoelaces?

Obviously this is a nonexhaustive list.  I’ll get around to adding more when I can.

Some of the magazines I like are: