There is a lot of info. on Bezmenov both pro and con and you have to listen to what he says and form a judgement yourself as to whether that is plausible. Everything about him has been muddied (even how exactly he died!) and hence all sources are questionable.

The second book on "Brainwashing" is unfortunately named (not to be confused with an older book of the same name by L.Ron Hubbard of Scientology infamy) but the author's credentials are stellar - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Taylor_(biologist) It is not a woo-woo book but a scientific one; the last paragraph in the wikipedia page states;

Peter Knight believes that Taylor sufficiently "argues that there is no need to invoke the notion of brainwashing as a mysterious and fear-inducing explanation as a last resort" – to Taylor, "brainwashing is less scary than people might think because it is in fact not some magical, secret and ultra-efficient technique of thought control" but a "mundane and ubiquitous" neurological phenomenon that can be understood scientifically.

The first book on "Deception" will in a sense set the background since it focuses on deception as fundamental to everything else. This has already been called out in ancient classic texts on statecraft/warfare by Kautilya, Sun Tzu, Machiavelli etc. Example excerpt;

They were a metaphor for a world in which he saw deception as a norm rather
than an aberration. It was a world in which intelligence services could be provoked, seduced, lured into false trails, blinded, and turned into unwitting agents—through the same failure to discriminate between real and simulated information.

The reason it is important for the "common man" to learn about these is because many of these techniques are being used against him under the guise of "harmless business" PR/Advertising/Sales/Marketing/Influence etc. and much much worse eg. Nationalism, Religious Fundamentalism etc.

PS: One more book to read (difficult) is "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes" by Jacques Ellul - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda:_The_Formation_of_M... Excerpts below;

"Very frequently propaganda is described as a manipulation for the purpose of changing idea or opinions of making individuals 'believe' some idea or fact, and finally of making them adhere to some doctrine—all matters of the mind. It tries to convince, to bring about a decision, to create a firm adherence to some truth. This is a completely wrong line of thinking: to view propaganda as still being what it was in 1850 is to cling to an obsolete concept of man and of the means to influence him; it is to condemn oneself to understand nothing about propaganda. The aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas, but to provoke action. It is no longer to change adherence to a doctrine, but to make the individual cling irrationally to a process of action. It is no longer to transform an opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief."

Education permits the dissemination of propaganda in that it enables people to consume information. Information is indistinguishable from propaganda in that information is an essential element of propaganda because for propaganda to succeed it must have reference to political or economic reality. Propaganda grafts itself onto an already existing reality through "informed opinion".