Reading

Most of what looks unprecedented has a precedent, and the precedents are usually better documented than the present.

• Principles for Navigating Big Debt CrisesRay Dalio

  The archetype chapter is worth more than all the case studies that follow it.

• The Ascent of MoneyNiall Ferguson

  The broad survey. A good place to start and thin exactly where the other books here are deep.

• The Big ShortMichael Lewis

  Lewis is a storyteller first. Read it for how the trade felt, not for how it worked.

• Devil Take the HindmostEdward Chancellor

  Speculation is not a malfunction of markets. It recurs, and it recurs with the same shape.

• Secrets of the TempleWilliam Greider

  Seven hundred pages on the Volcker Fed and never dull. Read it before forming an opinion about what central banks actually do.

• The Great Depression: A DiaryBenjamin Roth

  A lawyer in Youngstown writing down what the Depression looked like while it was still happening. Contemporaneous beats retrospective.

• The Intelligent InvestorBenjamin Graham

  Chapters 8 and 20 are the book. The rest is context. Extremely slow, but valuable nonetheless.

• The Interpretation of Financial StatementsBenjamin Graham

  Graham in 130 pages. I hand this to anyone who says they want to learn to read a 10-K.

• The Most Important Thing, IlluminatedHoward Marks

  Second-level thinking, and the memo format taught me as much as the content did.

• Mastering the Market CycleHoward Marks

  Where are we in the cycle and what does that imply about positioning. Marks answers it without predicting anything.

• Fortune's FormulaWilliam Poundstone

  The Kelly criterion, Claude Shannon, and the mob. Position sizing is the part of investing almost nobody teaches, and the part I have spent the most time on since.

• All About Asset AllocationRichard Ferri

  Unglamorous and correct. Most portfolios fail on allocation, not on selection.

• Common Sense on Mutual FundsJohn Bogle

  Bogle on costs. The arithmetic is not arguable, which is why it is still uncomfortable.

• Against the GodsPeter Bernstein

  The history of how we learned to measure risk. Probability as a human invention, which is what it is. One of my favorites.

• Fooled by RandomnessNassim Taleb

  Taleb's best book and the one he is least famous for.

• The Black SwanNassim Taleb

  The argument is right and the tone is a lot. Both are true.

• Thinking, Fast and SlowDaniel Kahneman

  I later learned that parts of the priming literature did not hold. Nonetheless, this book taught me how to think.

• Your Money and Your BrainJason Zweig

  Zweig on the neuroscience of selling at the bottom. The most directly useful of the behavioral books.

• The Psychology of MoneyMorgan Housel

  Short, and the one I give to people who do not work in finance.

• Capitalism and FreedomMilton Friedman

  Friedman's case stated plainly. Worth reading in the original rather than in summary, in my opinion, including by people who disagree with it.

• Black Rednecks and White LiberalsThomas Sowell

  Sowell arguing that cultural patterns travel and persist. Heavily contested. Worth engaging with directly rather than secondhand.

• Why We're PolarizedEzra Klein

  A structural account of polarization rather than a moral one. It sits deliberately across the table from the two books above it.

• Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should KnowBailey and Tupy

  A useful corrective when the news makes everything feel terminal.

• Zero to OnePeter Thiel

  Monopoly as the objective rather than the accusation. The chapter on competition is the one that matters.

• The FoundersJimmy Soni

  The PayPal group before they were the PayPal group. There is a reason they are called the PayPal mafia.

• The ShallowsNicholas Carr

  What reading online does to attention. I try to reread it whenever mine gets worse.

• The Filter BubbleEli Pariser

  Published in 2011 and more accurate now than it was then, which is the definition of a good prediction.

• Guns, Germs, and SteelJared Diamond

  Geography as the independent variable. Historians contest it. Still a useful frame to argue with. Referenced it a lot in college.

• Blink, The Tipping Point, OutliersMalcolm Gladwell

  Gladwell is a stylist more than a scientist. Read for the framing and verify the studies yourself. Great reads though.

• PrinciplesRay Dalio

  Another foundational book. The management half is better than the life half though.

• Writing That WorksRoman and Raphaelson

  Ogilvy's agency on how to write. Short, and it has improved every memo I have written since.

• The War of ArtSteven Pressfield

  On resistance. Useful on the days the work is not getting done.

• MeditationsMarcus Aurelius

  A Roman emperor's private notes on staying steady. Not written to be read, which is why it works. I think the readings should be taught in schools.

• Man's Search for MeaningViktor Frankl

  Frankl in the camps. The clinical second half is the part people skip and should not.

• When Breath Becomes AirPaul Kalanithi

  A neurosurgeon dying at 37, on what work is for.

• How Will You Measure Your Life?Clayton Christensen

  Christensen applying strategy frameworks to a life. Sounds glib. Is not.

• The Miracle of MindfulnessThich Nhat Hanh

  On attention. Quick read.

• Caesar: Life of a ColossusAdrian Goldsworthy

  Caesar without the mythology. Useful on how power is actually accumulated, which is slowly and then not.

• Natural Born HeroesChristopher McDougall

  Cretan resistance fighters and the physiology of endurance. I read it while training for an Ironman, which probably explains the affection.

Not adjacent to the rest of this. Just what I read.

• Blood MeridianCormac McCarthy

  The best American novel I have read and the hardest to recommend.

• All the Pretty HorsesCormac McCarthy

  McCarthy when he is not trying to break you.

• The RoadCormac McCarthy

• The Sun Also RisesErnest Hemingway

  Two hundred and fifty pages of people avoiding the subject.

• The Nine Cloud DreamKim Man-jung

• 1984George Orwell

• The CircleDave Eggers

  1984 for the surveillance you volunteer for.

• The FountainheadAyn Rand

• A Song of Ice and FireGeorge R. R. Martin

• The Dark TowerStephen King

• The Darkness That Comes BeforeR. Scott Bakker

• Hell HouseRichard Matheson

Recommended, queued, not yet read. This list is honest about that.

• Manias, Panics, and CrashesCharles Kindleberger

• Lords of FinanceLiaquat Ahamed

• The Price of TimeEdward Chancellor

• This Time Is DifferentReinhart and Rogoff

• Security AnalysisGraham and Dodd

• Expectations InvestingMauboussin and Rappaport

• Margin of SafetySeth Klarman

• Wages of DestructionAdam Tooze