Fifty books that will turn you into a modern-day polymath

At B&N Reads Jeff Somers tagged fifty books that will prepare you to discuss just about anything with the confidence of an expert, including:

Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, by Bobby Fischer

What You’ll Learn: Chess.

Why play chess? For one, it’s one of the oldest games ever played. For another, humans’ ability to play chess may be all that’s standing between us and our computer overlords. Fischer was nuts, but he was a genius at the game, and his book (written before his full-on breakdown) remains a classic.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue