Here is a complete and full list of books that I like my students to read. Extremely long, and randomly written i hope to write reviews on all these books and it should be available soon. Some of these book reviews have already appeared in the In house magazine of BSE called Sensex.

Best Investment books to read

Investment books to read

Subramoney’s recommended books to read

Some of the reviews may also be available online – in the personal finance section of myiris.com. Books have been listed completely at random – and I have intended it to look like an index. Keep coming back to this page – will add short summaries or comments on each book from time to time as well as full reviews. One of the links on the blogroll is a quaint friendly neigbourhood book shop – twistntales. The other place where I have bought most of these books is bookzone.com based in Mumbai.

A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel.

Jeremy Siegel’s Stocks for the Long Run

Commonsense of Finance – Dr. Prasanna Chandra – get the basics of finance and accounts from here so that you understand concepts like P&L, B/ Sheet, write offs, taxation, etc.

Analysis for Financial Management by Robert Higgins.

Accounting Shenanigans – do not try to read it unless you are a CA or well versed with practical accounting..

Why Smart People Make Dumb Money Mistakes by Gary Belsky and Thomas Gilovich.

Parag Parikhs’ book on Behaviourial finance has brought some Indianness to this science! The book is called Stock to Riches.

Roger Lowenstein’s Making of an American Capitalist.

Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor is a must-read. But it can be kind of painful for today’s kids who do not like to read about bond valuation. However, if you realise that bond valuation is the basis from which equity valuation evolves, you will appreciate this book better!

Phil Fisher – Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits

Speaking of Phil Fisher leads us to Ken Fisher – and his book “The Only 3 questions you need to know” is also an excellent book to read, and as useful as his father’s book. It clears a lot of cobwebs – turning the PE ratio is a useful example!

Peter Lynch’s Beating the Street is the journal of a successful money manager, who is also a good communicator. CIOs should do their job well and also be able to communicate their skills and strategies. 

You Can Be a Stock Market Genius by Joel Greenblatt –it’s relatively short, full of case studies, and engagingly written.

John Train’s Money Masters of Our Time and The New Money Masters

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator – Edwin Lefevre. Reads like a pot boiler!

Seth Klarman’s Margin of Safety.

Marty Whitman’s The Aggressive Conservative Investor- I personally found this a difficult read!

David Dreman’s Contrarian Investment Strategies.

Munger’s biography–Damn Right! by Janet Lowe. Personally found this difficult to read.

John Kenneth Galbraith’s A Short History of Financial Euphoria.

Devil Take the Hindmost by Edward Chancellor is a fantastic and in-depth history of manias through the ages.

Ron Chernow’s The House of Morgan

Peter Bernstein’s 2 books – Capital Ideas & Against the Gods

The Money Game – Adam Smith

Michael Lewis’s 2 books: Liar’s Poker and Moneyball. Liked Liar’s Poker.

Roger Lowenstein’s When Genius Failed, which chronicles the rise and fall of the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund in the late 1990s.

Bethany McLean’s The Smartest Guys in the Room,

Kurt Eichenwald’s Conspiracy of Fools

Robert Cialdini’s Influence – good book on human behavior.

Fooled by Randomness, by Nassim Taleb, is more directly about finance, and is thought-provoking. Taleb explores how easily we confuse luck with skill, and the importance of knowing which is which. He has followed this with Black Swan. Frankly if you are planning to read, or have read Black Swan, his earlier book Fooled by Randomness becomes unnecessary.

Bruce Greenwald’s Value Investing

Michael Porter’s Competitive Strategy. Tough to read, reads like a typical textbook, but is useful if you are doing interviews of CEOs and CMOs of the world.

The Intelligent Asset Allocator: How to Build Your Portfolio to Maximize Returns and Minimize Risk – by William J Bernstein

Asset Allocation: Balancing Financial Risk by Roger C Gibson

Rich Dad Poor Dad – Robert Kiyasaki

Market Wizards – Jack D Schwager

The Warren Buffet Portfolio – Robert Hagstorm

Future for Investors – Jeremy Siegel

Common Sense on Mutual Funds – John Bogle

New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor – John Bogle

The Art of Short Selling – Kathryn F Staley (never used the short strategy personally, caveat)

Barbarians at the Gate – Bryan Burrough and John Helyar

Beating the Dow – Michael O’Higgins and John Downes

Buffet – the Making of an American Capitalist – Roger Lowenstein

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds – Charles Mackay

45 years in Wall street – WD Gann

Great crash of 1929 – J K Galbraith

How to lie with statistics – Darrell Huff

John Maynard Keynes (Volumes 1 and 2): Robert Skidelsky

Soros on Soros – George Soros with Byron Wien and Krisztina Koenen

Technical Analysis of Stock Trends – Robert D Edwards and John Magee

Think like a Tycoon – W G Hill

Where are the Customer’s Yachts – Fred Schwed Jr.