My favourite books on money & personal finance

By Cleona Lira, 22nd March 2015 Looking for a list of great books on money, wealth, personal finance to add to your library? Here are a few of my top favourites (in no particular order):

1. Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence: Revised and Updated for the 21st Century by Joe Dominguez , Vicki Robin, Monique Tilford , Mark Zaifman - Vicki Robin shows readers how to gain control of their money and finally begin to make a life, rather than just make a living. This book is really my top favourite; I probably dip into it every now & then. By far, one that I recommend everyone buy as it is a real eye opener. Buy, buy,buy!
2. The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder -  Warren Buffett, the legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir, but finally has given Alice Schroeder unprecedented access to him and all those closest to his work, opinions, struggles, triumphs, follies and wisdom. The result is this personally revealing and complete biography of 'The Oracle of Omaha', indispensable reading for those who wish to know the man behind the outstanding achievements.
3. Pit Bull: Lessons from Wall Street's Champion Trader by Martin Schwartz -A legendary Wall Street trader journeys inside the high-stakes, high-pressure world of investment to share his secrets of financial success and offers insights into the psychology of making money. I love this book and Marty Schwartz writes in a style that will make you laugh. It also delves into how psychology affects trading, the highs, lows and rejections faced by fund managers in the industry.
4. Market Wizards by Jack D. Schwager -Schwager lets you hear, in their own words, what  super–traders had to say about their unprecedented successes, and he distils their responses down into a set of guiding principles. Features interviews with superstar money–makers including Bruce Kovner, Richard Dennis, Paul Tudor Jones, Michel Steinhardt, Ed Seykota, Marty Schwartz, Tom Baldwin, and more Tells the true stories behind sensational trading coups, including the one about the trader who turned $30,000 into $80 million, the hedge fund manager who′s averaged 30% returns every year for the past twenty–one years, and the T–bond futures trader who parlayed $25,000 into $2 billion in a single day! This is a classic if you want to understand the mind set of traders and trading legends like Ed Seykota.
5. Early Retirement Extreme: A Philosophical and Practical Guide to Financial Independence by Jacob Lund Fisker - teaches how a shift in focus from consuming to producing can help people out of the consumer trap, and offers a path to achieving the freedom necessary to pursue interests other than working for a living. The framework has been used by many people over the last few years to accomplish a variety of goals. It provides people a means to achieve almost any goal, whether it’s debt-free living, extended travel, a sabbatical, a career change, time off to raise a child, a traditional retirement, or simply a desire for a more resilient and self-sufficient lifestyle. I really found it challenged the way I thought about retirement, my own values about consumerism but in a very positive way. The book is fairly cerebral, written in a very intellectual style and at times, this does not make for easy reading but worthwhile nonetheless.
6. Scarcity: The True Cost of Not Having Enough by Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir - Why can we never seem to keep on top of our workload, social diary or chores? Why does poverty persist around the world? Why do successful people do things at the last minute in a sudden rush of energy? Here, economist Sendhil Mullainathan and psychologist Eldar Shafir reveal that the hidden side behind all these problems is that they're all about scarcity. I am still reading this book...recently bought it.
7. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefevre-Reminiscences is a fictionalized account of the life of the securities trader Jesse Livermore. The book tells the story of Livermore's progression from day trading in the then so-called "New England bucket shops," to market speculator, market maker, and market manipulator, and finally to Wall Street where he made and lost his fortune several times over. Along the way, Livermore learns many lessons, which he happily shares with the reader. This is an absolute classic of course and useful to note, there are different rules for trading v/s investing.
8. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill - Napoleon Hill researched more than forty millionaires to find out what made them the men that they were. In this book he imparts that knowledge to you. It is quite a classic & one of my favourites.
9. The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money by Ron Lieber is a useful book for parents who are keen to introduce the concepts of money, saving, charitable giving to their children and wondering how to go about it. I highly recommend it for parents who want to learn more about raising their children with a healthy relationship to money.

Happy reading!