Broad Financial Independence
The Simple Path to Wealth (J L Collins) – A great book on building wealth in general. Entertaining read and easy to understand.
Your Money or Your Life (Vicki Robin & Joe Dominguez) – A classic on financial independence. The last edition has been revised to make it more relevant for the 21st century.
Investing
A Random Walk Down Wall Street (Burton G. Malkiel) – A very good overview of investing in general. The author is a renown academic with a great wealth of experience and an incredible resume. He makes the case as to why most people would get the most out of their money by investing in low cost index funds. I would not recommend this book for someone who is completely new to investing. If you have already done some reading on the subject, this is a great book. See my full book review.
Investing for Dummies – This was the first non-academic book that I read on investing. It was very helpful to me as someone who was completely new to the subject.
Economics, Business, and Life
Enough (John Bogle) – Author John C Bogle. Founder of the Vanguard Group and creator of the first index fund, puts our obsession with financial success in perspective. Highly recommended.
Naked Economics (Charles Wheelan) – A great book about economics written in plain English. Easy to read and full of real life examples. A very insightful book!
Tap Dancing to Work (Carol Loomis) – A great recollection of articles on Warren Buffett. A man who is one the richest in the world, yet he lives an unpretentious no non-sense life. Among other things, he has a great sense of humor, is down to earth, and has pledged to donate 99% of his wealth to charity. This book provides good insight into Buffett’s story and his way of thinking.
The 4-Hour Workweek (Tim Ferris) – A great book if you want to be more productive, start your own business, and enjoy more leisure time. While the lifestyle plan that the book proposes is not for everyone, there is definitely great content for everyone.
You can buy these books online or try finding and reading them for free at your local public library 🙂