Recommended Reading
The following represent recommendations for serious investors, although we believe there should be no other kind:
Belsky, Gary, and Thomas Gilovich. Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes—and How to Correct Them: Lessons from the New Science of Behavioral Economics. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.
Bernstein, Peter. Capital Ideas: The Improbable Origins of Modern Wall Street. New York: Wiley, 2005; and Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk. New York: Wiley, 1998.
Bernstein, William. The Intelligent Asset Allocator: How to Build Your Portfolio to Maximize Returns and Minimize Risk. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001; and The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002.
Ellis, Charles. Winning the Loser’s Game: Timeless Strategies for Successful Investing. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002.
Fridson, Martin. Investment Illusions: A Savvy Wall Street Pro Explodes Popular Misconceptions About the Markets. New York: Wiley, 1993.
Kurtz, Howard. The Fortune Tellers: Inside Wall Street’s Game of Money, Media, and Manipulation. New York: Free Press, 2000.
Malkiel, Burton G. A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing. New York: W. W. Norton, 2007.
Ross, Ron. The Unbeatable Market: Taking the Indexing Path to Financial Peace of Mind. Eureka, CA: Optimum Press, 2002.
Shefrin, Hersh. Beyond Greed and Fear: Understanding Behavioral Finance and the Psychology of Investing. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000.
Sherden, William. The Fortune Sellers: The Big Business of Buying and Selling Predictions. New York: Wiley, 1998.
Simon, W. Scott. The Prudent Investor Act: A Guide to Understanding. Camarillo, Calif.: Namborn, 2002.
Swensen, David. Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment. New York: Free Press, 2005.
Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2005.
Temkin, Bruce J. The Terrible Truth About Investing: How to Be a Savvy Investor. St. Petersburg, Fla.: Fairfield Press, 2000.
Warwick, Ben. Searching for Alpha: The Quest for Exceptional Investment Performance. New York: Wiley, 2000.
For those interested in learning about the history of various financial follies, we recommend three excellent books. The first is Charles Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841). His book is as relevant today as it was when it was first published more than 160 years ago. The others are Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation (2000), by Edward Chancellor; and Irrational Exuberance (2005), by Robert Shiller.