Read Barbarians at the Gate if you haven't already.

The fascinating inside story of the largest corporate takeover in American history. It reads like a novel.

Good read. There's a great history of private equity, w/ entertaining and motivating profiles of personalities and war stories. It seems that all of the successful people in the book are inwardly-focused, but expressive. It sounds conflicting, but that's the best way I can describe it. Very confident in their intuition, and comfortable persuading others towards it, regardless of their normal social abilities (it appears that some are socially comfortable, while others are typically more introverted in non-business settings).

The authors … [take] us from the early days of the Blackstone Group, when the firm was just two guys and a secretary, to the buyout boom, when Mr. Schwarzman’s conspicuous consumption became a symbol of the new Gilded Age. In between, the book dives deeply into the firm’s signature deals — Celanese! Nalco! Distressed cable bonds! — that made Mr. Schwarzman and his partners so rich. It also delivers some fun details about many of the now-famous Wall Street players that did tours of duty at the firm.

I have been a partner in the Venture Capital business my entire career - over twenty years. I have kept a personal list of "lessons learned" from my investment experience; and, I have read many of the books in the category. By far, this is the very best book in all respects.

The Masters of Private Equity and Venture Capital is a great book for anyone (student or professional) interested in the VC/PE industry. It was written by two individuals: a talented business journalist, skilled at explaining business ideas, and by a private equity master, who is known, proven, and well respected in the industry. The book offers insights, advice, and lessons directly from the proven leaders who run the PE/VC industry. I first read the book after graduating undergrad, using it as a reference tool when networking with industry execs. As a young professional, I often refer to the book, prior to business meetings with clients.

Definitely check out Josh Lerner's 'Venture Capital and Private Equity: a Casebook.' He's the legendary HBS professor in the space with knowledge out the ass. It's technical, offers real-life, international cases, goes into returns, raising and structuring funds, and different valuation strategies. The book is a painful tome you'll never get through, but it's nice to pick-and-choose ad hoc to get kernels of knowledge you want/need in real time.

If you are somewhat knowledgeable about private equity then this is a "must read". If you are a beginner make sure you become familiar with the ins & outs of private equity/venture capital before reading or else you may miss a lot of the value of this book.

I just started reading this a couple nights ago; it's a very quick read and is extremely practical. It obviously has its roots in the private equity investment criteria, but you can definitely see how the fundamental qualities stressed in the book are also important traits to assess in public companies. As someone who used to cover public companies but recently moved to private equity, I think it's very relevant and useful in helping someone become a "smarter investor" (as well as a better executor, for those of you that aspire to be C-level personnel sometime down the line).

Two business experts from Bain & Company believe that successful practices adopted by PE players can be applied to different industries around the world. After having abundant consulting experience of working with PE players, they maintain that there are at least six deceptively simple rules in which PE players set a concrete and inescapable benchmark for corporate performance.

There is extensive and detailed instruction for a big team analyzing for a big project, whether it is capital budgeting, capital structure, merger, acquisition, restructuring, bankruptcy or any other valuation topic. It is comprehensive and clear. If you work on this kind of project, you need this book. If you don't work on this kind of project, it can still give you a tremendous amount of insight into the factors that contribute to shareholder value.

The best valuation book just got better. This edition's greater emphasis on what drives value and how to measure it will improve the way practitioners conduct financial analysis and, ultimately, make strategic decisions. It is required reading for all executives.

Just got the new technical guide. By far much better than vault. Very detailed (80+ pages) with charts, graphs, etc. I'll be reading this at least once this summer in prepping for fall interviews.

The new Wall Street Oasis Technical Guide provides questions and easy to understand answers for all the questions I typically ask when interviewing a candidate. The additional questions expand the guide, and the new charts are an added bonus for easily remembering the crucial concepts. If a student really knows all the questions in this guide, they are sure to nail the technical section of their interview.

All I can say is I wish I had the Wall Street Oasis Behavioral Guide before I went into my banking interviews. I was well prepared for some of the fit questions that came my way, but others challenged me. With the extensive number of questions in this guide and the sample answers, I would have felt prepared to handle almost anything.

I didn't read Wall Street Oasis Technical and Behavioral Interview guides until after my first year in my MBA program, and frankly they contained everything I had spent the last year learning to get a job on the Street. I highly recommend them to anyone preparing for an interview, finance or other. It's a heck of a lot cheaper than an MBA (not to mention faster and more to the point).

Daniel Sheyner has written an extremely comprehensive, accurate, and informative synopsis of the private equity industry and getting in its iron doors. It's the best report of its kind that I have seen.

The Wall Street Oasis private equity & venture capital guide is an excellent overview of how to land you dream job in private equity. In short, it summarizes what it takes to get your foot in the door.