I’ve only been posting here for a few months, but already I’ve learned that the most valuable part of writing online is meeting smart, interesting people and learning from them. I learn mostly through books, so I’ve asked a bunch of my favorite writers what their all-time favorite investing books are. I love the list that has resulted from the first group of respondents. Here is a meta-curated list of the best investing books ever, from Meb Faber, Morgan Housel, Josh Brown, Michael Kitces, Michael Batnick, and Ben Carlson (full list below). My own top five will be the feature in June’s book list, so sign up over here.
I’ve read most of these books (but did find some great suggestions that I didn’t know of) and can attest that if you read each one, you would have an incredibly thorough and well rounded take on markets. This is like a bachelor’s and master’s degree combined. Thanks to all the great writers who submitted books-hopefully this will be the first of several similar lists.
THE BOOKS
The Worldly Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner
Investing: The Last Liberal Art by Robert G. Hagstrom
Backstage Wall Street by Joshua M. Brown
Irrational Exuberance (2nd Edition 2009) by Prof Robert J. Shiller
Simple Wealth, Inevitable Wealth (Fifth Edition 2013) by Nick Murray
Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb
Unexpected Returns by Ed Easterling
Myth of the Rational Market by Justin Fox
Misbehavior of Markets by Benoit Mandelbrot
Against the Gods by Peter Bernstein
The Most Important Thing by Howard Marks
Your Money & Your Brain by Jason Zweig
The Warren Buffett Portfolio by Robert G. Hagstrom
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by Jack Bogle
Poor Charlie’s Almanac by Charlie Munger
The Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham
Market Wizards by Jack Schwager
Trend Following by Michael Covel
Bull! by Maggie Mahar
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefevre
Triumph of the Optimists by Dimson, Marsh and Staunton
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Hello Patrick,
I’m a recent grad of USC Marshall Business School and have just begun investing personally. I want to start reading these books ASAP but I was curious if I should touch up on accounting 1st or if the books alone will teach me a lot?
-Ilian
Hi Ilian,
I recommend that you discover your preferred way of investing via reading up the above books and more, and at the same time whenever you come across methods which require a basic level of accounting (more financial reporting in my view), fill in the blanks through accounting books.
Most accounting books are not written for purposes of helping readers to invest, so it may be less productive if you do accounting first.
I practise a variant of old school value investing that focuses on the financial numbers. Do pop by http://www.valuestocks.org, you may find some contents relevant.
-Henry
http://www.valuestocks.org
http://www.valuestocks.sg