"Social Engineering: The art of human hacking" by Christopher Hadnagy

One-paragraph review: "Social Engineering" represents itself to teach the reader how to resist social-engineering attacks -- broadly, the use of vulnerabilities in human psychology that cause us to let down our guard. While it ultimately does offer some of those lessons, it is mostly a manual in the offensive use of social engineering rather than the defensive. The text is padded heavily with details and URLs that aren't really necessary in the main body text, and the tone too often borders on gleeful when it describes the successful offensive deployment of social-engineering tactics. Probably quite useful for people involved directly in information security, but too long a slog for non-specialists who simply want to know how to beef up their defenses against attack.

Verdict: A long slog through an important subject, but unfriendly to the non-specialist reader