There were dozens of good books that were published this year related to investing and business. I thought it would be a good idea to post some of them as amazon.com is having a huge sale throughout the Thanksgiving day weekend, and they are good presents for a loved one, neighbor, friend, co-worker, or yourself!
Before books some electronic reading devices that readers might be interested in include the Apple iPad (Wifi),, Kindle 3G Wireless Reading Device, Free 3G + Wi-Fi, 6″ Display, Graphite, 3G Works Globally – Latest Generation and Kindle Wireless Reading Device, Wi-Fi, 6″ Display, Graphite – Latest Generation (all of which have come down significantly in price this year). I personally like print books and plan to never give them so I do not use any e-readers, however I have many family members, friends and colleagues who love the e-readers.
Below are some of the best books of the year most of which I read.
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis. Lewis is a great story teller. This book is about a few largely unknown people who shorted the housing market and made millions of dollars. Lewis is a master writer and this is one of his best pieces of work. Seth Klarman recommended reading any book by Michael Lewis, which I mention at the following link. https://www.valuewalk.com/books/seth-klarmans-reccomendations/. To see my book review on The Big Short click here.
Buffett Beyond Value: Why Warren Buffett Looks to Growth and Management When Investing by Prem Jain. I only read part of this book so I did not end up posting a review. The book is fantastic. The book explains how contrary to popular belief, Warren Buffett is not a pure value investor, but a unique thinker who combines the principles of both value and growth investing strategies. You’ll also discover why Buffett emphasizes the importance of high-quality management above many other metrics when evaluating a company he’s interested in. The book received 37 five star reviews on Amazon.com, a feat that I have not seen accomplished by ANY other book.
The Little Book of Behavioral Investing: How not to be your own worst enemy (Little Book, Big Profits) by James Montier. I tend to find psychology boring but loved this book. I pst this book on my list of top books I would recommend for a beginner. In addition, the book would help even an advanced investor. To see my review on the book click here.
Montier has previous writen some fantastic books on investing including; Value Investing: Tools and Techniques for Intelligent Investment, Behavioural Finance: Insights into Irrational Minds and Markets, and Behavioural Investing: A Practitioners Guide to Applying Behavioural Finance.
The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: “On Robustness and Fragility” By Nassim Taleb. Taleb is one of my favorite writers. The book gets its title from “the black swan,” whose discovery invalidated the theory that all swans are white. Taleb uses this manifestation of the unpredicted event into a range of phenomena, such as why a book becomes a best-seller or how an entrepreneur becomes a billionaire, taking pit stops with philosophers who have addressed the meaning of the unexpected and confounding. While the book was originally released in 2007 Taleb updated it this year after the financial crisis (which if you read the book you can understand that the crisis came as no surprise to him). To see my review on the book click here.
Also check out Taleb’s other best-seller Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets which I reviewed here.
Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the FinancialSystem–and Themselves. By andrew Ross Sorkin. This book is a masterpiece. There are hundreds of books that detail the story of the financial crisis but Sorkin’s bestseller is arguably the best. Sorkin had access to top Government officials, CEOs, and many other big players who know the truth behind what really happened during those dark months of summer and fall 2010. I could barely put this book down. To see my review click here.
How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. This book is a classic, and is highly recommended by great value investor Guy Spier as I note here-https://www.valuewalk.com/books/guy-spiers-reading-list/ Carnegie teaches skills through underlying principles of dealing with people so that they feel important and appreciated. He also emphasizes fundamental techniques for handling people without making them feel manipulated.While this book is ancient, a new edition came out this year.
The Little Book That Still Beats the Market (Little Books. Big Profits) by Joel Greenblatt. Joel Greenblatt updated his new book on the magic formula. The magic formula was invented by Greenblatt which searches for companies with high returns on capital and low earnings yield. I will be reviewing the updated version in the next few days.
I also highly recommend Greenblatt’s other book- You Can Be a Stock Market Genius: Uncover the Secret Hiding Places of Stock Market Profits, which despite the cheesy title I consider to be one of the best books on investing ever written.
Benjamin Graham, Building a Profession: The Early Writings of the Father of Security Analysis by Jason Zweig. Zweig is one of my favorite columnists. I am an avid reader of his weekly article in the Wall Street Journal. In this book he puts together many of Graham’s writings which cannot be found in either the The Intelligent Investor or Security Analysis. If you are a benjamin Graham fan you will really enjoy this one. To see my review on the book click here.
The End of Wall Street by Roger Lowenstein. Lowenstein is one of the greatest authors of our time. As I note on the following link Seth klarman recommends reading all of Lowenstein’s books https://www.valuewalk.com/books/seth-klarmans-reccomendations/. In Lowenstein’s latest book he details the financial crisis with no bars held. To read my review of the book click here.
globalization: n. the irrational fear that someone in China will take your job by Bruce Greenwald. This book dispells a lot of the myths the media portrays in regards to Globalization. I could not put this book down for a second and finished it within two days. Greenwald offers a very contraversial and interesting perspective on Globalization; one that I never got from university, the media, or most economists. I also had the privellege to meet and interview Bruce Greenwald if you care to read it click here. To read my book review click here.
The following are some books that were published in 2010 that I did not read, however I heard great things about them and will read them if I get a chance:
Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Simon Johnson.
13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown by Liaquat Ahamed
Overhaul: An Insider’s Account of the Obama Administration’s Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry by Steven Rattner.
How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes by Peter Schiff.
Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy by the esteemed economist Joseph Stiglitz.
Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance by Nouriel Roubini the man who predicted the full disaster awaiting our financial system while most people just laughed at him.