The Education of a Hedge Fund Manager by Christopher Moon 1.

The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America by Lawrence A. Cunningham The best investment advice. Check out the Chairmans Letters at www.berkshirehathaway.com. See also Mungers Poor Charlies Almanack, 2nd Edition and chapter 12 of J.M. Keynes The General Theory Long Term Expectation

2. The Intelligent Investor: A Book of Practical Counsel by Benjamin Graham The difference between investing and speculating. Focus on chapters 8 and 20. Also read the 1st through 4th editions of Grahams Security Analysis to learn how to think about valuation.

3. Buffet: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein The best biography of any nancier. Also read Chernows House of Morgan, Grants Baruch, J. Paul Gettys memoirs, Sarnoffs Russell Sage, and Kleins Jay Gould, (Gould was the Michelangelo of nance). For follow up reads on Buffet read Hagstroms The Warren Buffet Way and Schroeders Snowball.

4. Investment Valuation: Tools and Techniques for Determining the Value of Any Asset, 2nd Edition by Aswath Damodaran Basics of valuation modeling. Also check out: http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar Next read, John Burr Williams classic The Theory of Investment Value to see the rst DCF model and Poundstones Fortunes Formula. It is also worth taking the 3-year CFA course you can do it in 18 to 24 months.

5. Financial Statement Analysis: A Practitioners Guide, 3rd Edition by Fernando Alvarez

Learn the ROE breakdown and accounting nuances. Read Bernsteins Analysis of Financial Statements and OGloves Quality of Earnings. Kiesos Intermediate Accounting is a handy reference. See also Grahams book Interpreting Financial Statements.

6. Creative Cash Flow Reporting: Uncovering Sustainable Financial Performance by Charles W. Mulford This is the single best book on how to read a cash ow statement. It teaches one how to assess a companys SUSTAINABLE FREE CASH FLOW, which is what a rational investor uses to value a company. Practice by doing.

7. Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of the Financial Crises by Charles P. Kindleberger A historical perspective on crashes and downturns. Markets are often fairly efcient, but not always. The difference is night and day. Chancellors Devil Takes Hindmost is the perfect complement. Also the nancial histories by John Brooks, Desais Financial Crisis, & Franklin Allens Understanding Financial Crises. Also read Tvedes Business Cycles.

8. The Alchemy of Finance by George Soros Read all of Soros books, Soros on Soros is the next best one. Soros and Warren Buffett are the two greatest investors from 1970 to today. Read Jim Rogers two travel memoirs (for country anaylsis), Victor Niederhoffers books on speculation, and watch the PBS documentary Trader featuring Paul Tudor Jones.

9. Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System by Barry J. Eichengreen It is important to understand the macro big picture. Next read Maggie Mahars Bull , Jeffrey Friedens Global Capitalism, and Grants Money of the Mind.

10. The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson Understanding the nature and basis of money is important. Also read two books by Milton Friedman: A Monetary History of the United States and Money Mischief. Finish with

Galbraiths Money: Whence It Came and James Buchans cultural and literary history of money, Frozen Desire.

11. This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly by Kenneth S. Rogoff Sovereign debt crisis will continue (the proigate nature of government hasnt changed). Next read Roubini/Setsers Bailouts or Bail-ins?. Bruners Panic of 1907, Talebs Black Swan, and Paul Blusteins books.

12. Financial Shenanigans: How to Detect Accounting Gimmicks & Fraud in Financial Reports, 3rd Edition by Howard Schilit Learning the limits of bean-counting is important if you wish to really understand accounting. Then read Wells Fraud Casebook for the dark side avoiding junk.

13. The Art of Short Selling by Kathryn F. Staley It is important to be hedged heavily near extremes and lightly in moderate times. Staley gives the nuts and bolts of it. I havent found a great book on creating hedged portfolios, but Jacobs Market Neutral Investing is the closest.

14. Common Stocks and Uncommon Prots and Other Writings by Philip A. Fisher Basic qualitative tools for identifying good businesses. An investor is both a skeptic and an investigative journalist.

15. Business Strategy and Security Analysis: The Key to Long Term Prots by Raymond K. Suutari Foundations. Advanced qualitative tools for identifying good businesses. These are the economic value drivers behind the nancial ratios. Read along with Porters Competitive Strategy. You need to understand the economic forces behind the accounting numbers.

16. Behavorial Finance and Wealth Management: How to Build Optimal Portfolios That Account for Investor Biases by Michael M. Pompian Best book on behavioral nance. Also read anything by Thaler/Kahnemann/Tversky: http:// badger.som.yale.edu/faculty/ncb25/cha18_6.pdf Also read Heuers Psychology of Intelligence Analysis for thoughts on how to think.

17. Beat the Market: A Scientic Stock Market System by Edward O. Thorp An out-of-print book on hedging. It is a classic especially for intelligent long/short work. A silly title, but the book is so good that it is expensive. I have seen it being sold for a minimum of $400! See Frank Knights Risk, Uncertainty, and Prot and read John Bogles article: http:// www.cfapubs.org/doi/ref/10.2469/faj.v64.n2.9 .

18. My Years with General Motors by Alfred P. Sloan Bill Gates preferred business history books. Other reads are Chernows biography of Rockefeller Titan, Krass Carnegie, and Chandlers Pierre S. Du Pont.

19. The Farmer From Merna by Karl Schriftgeisser To understand nance you need to understand the insurance business (many ideas overlap). Also read Wrights Mutually Benecial, Vaughns Fundamentals of Risk, Credit Suisses Property Casualty Insurance Primer (issued annually), the Galloways Handbook of Accounting for Insurance Companies, and Paines Reinsurance.

20. Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton Sam Walton was a business genius and a class act too. He built the strongest company of the 20th century. He was simple yet obsessive and ruthlessly adaptive. Fishmans The Walmart Effect brings the story up-to-date.

21. Bill & Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the Worlds Greatest Company by Michael S. Malone

Great entrepreneurs build companies worth investing in. Also read Moritas Made in Japan, Kotters Matsushita Leadership, Benioffs Behind the Cloud , and anything on Google.

22. Jack: Straight from the Gut by Jack Welch Welch gives a solid, informed perspective on managing a multinational corporation. His Winning is a good read for a short plane ight. Sobels ITT is another good book to look at the history of the last mega-conglomerate.

23. Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron by Peter Elkind Delusion can make a weak business into a great stock, as in Enrons case (but only for the shortrun). Older, instructive failures are McDonalds Insull, Katzs The Big Store (Sears downfall), and the Ivar Kreuger books.

24. Risk Arbitrage by Guy Wyser-Pratte A great introduction to special situations. Also see Greenblatts You Can Be a Stock Market Genius (lame title), Seth Klarmans out-of-print Margin of Safety, and Kirschners Merger Arbitrage.

25. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefevre Livermore is the godfather of todays trader-speculators. Also read Schwagers two Market Wizards books, which offer more insight on the trader-speculator. As well as Burtons Hedge Hunters. They are works of philosophy. The only way to get better at investing/timing is to do it practice, err, and learn.

26. The Battle for Investment Survival by Gerald M. Loeb Loeb hits you hard, he tries to both invest and speculate. The line is thin and dangerous. Focus on pages 49-62 and 119-124. Levys The Mind of Wall Street is a fun modern memoir. Then read John Trains Money Masters series.

27. Stigums Money Market 4th Edition by Marcia L. Stigum All investors need to understand bonds, the money market, and the yield curve. Also read The Strategic Bond Investor by Crescenzi, Homers Inside the Yield Book, books by Bill Gross and El-Erian, and the PIMCO commentary: http://pimco.com/TopNav/Home/Default.htm along with Howard Marks superlative Oaktree memos: http://www.oaktreecapital.com/memo.aspx

28. A History of Interest Rates: Third Edition, Revised by Sidney Homer A gentleman scholar/banker offers perspectives on interest rates, the lifeblood of nance. This book gives a needed, millennial perspective on the most important external input on valuation. Also see Homers Inside the Yield Book to understand bonds better and how they relate to stocks (twice recommended, doubly important!).

29. Corporate Governance by Nell Minow Governance/ownership is important and silly investors forget this (activist live on it). Also read Bebchuks Pay Without Performance, Einhorns Fooling Some of the People, and Stevens King Icahn.

30. How Cartels Endure and How They Fall: Studies of Industrial Collusion by Peter Z. Grossman Great companies tend to be oligopolies or monopolies. Also read a legal casebook in antitrust law, Hyltons Antitrust Law, or books on Standard Oil, Microsoft, and Google.

31. Chapter 11: Reorganizing American Businesses by Elizabeth Warren Mark Roe has the best bankruptcy casebook and Steve Millers The Turnaround Kid shows the nastiness from the business side.

32. Distressed Debt Analysis: Strategies for Speculative Investors by Stephen G. Moyer

For the daring, full time debt investors. Also read Rosenbergs The Vulture Investors, any of Professor Altmans or Gilsons books, Whitmans Distressed Investing, Warrens Chapter 11, and LoPuckis reference book, Strategies for Creditors in Bankruptcy Proceedings.

33. One Up On Wall Street: How to Use What You Already Know to Make Money in the Market by Peter Lynch Practical advice on how to capitalize on your area of knowledge and your strengths in picking stocks. Neffs John Neff on Investing is solid too.

34. In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington by Jacob Weisberg Rubin mentored some of todays best hedge fund investors (Lampert/ESL, Mindich/Eton Park, Singh/TPG-Axon, Och/Och-Ziff, Perry/Perry, etc.). Read the rst third of the book and learn Rubins probabilistic way of think. Then read books on decision trees, real options, and game theory. Next read Ellis The Partnership.

35. Commentaries and Cases on the Law of Business Organization, 2nd edition by William T. Allen For follow up read Merges IP survery of Intellectual Property in the New Tech Age. For those who hate law, see the relevant In a Nutshell series or any of the Aspen books.

36. Real Estate Finance & Investments: Risks and Opportunities, 2nd Edition by Peter Linneman, PhD. Real estate can act like bonds, stocks, options, or commodities, depending on the legal structure and asset. Also read Boyers Principles of Property Law, Blocks Investing in REITs, and research from Green Street Advisors (for facts).

37. Private Equity: History, Governance, and Operations by Harry Cendrowski See also Macarthurs Lessons From Private Equity for some great PE tips on how to run a company and Anders Merchants of Debt for the dirty scoop (Barbarians at the Gate if you want the really dirty details.

38. Stocks for the Long Run: The Denitive Guide to Financial Market Returns and LongTerm Investment Strategies by Jeremy J. Siegel Facts on asset classes, long-term returns, the impermanence of value. Siegels The Future for Investors is the next read. Also read the Morningstar book on Stocks, Bills, & Bonds and Dimsons Global Investment Returns book.