Trending Content
Career Resources
WSO Free Modeling Series - Now Open Through
May 31, 2024
9 Free Financial Modeling Lessons
Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.
+Bonus: Get 27 financial modeling templates in swipe file
+Bonus: Get 27 financial modeling templates in swipe file
48 laws of power - Robert Greene
Are there any guides on here for reading a top book? Think Barbarians at the Gate/The Big Short. I really don't want to go mid-tier and settle for Principles/Rich Dad Poor Dad, but friends with target reads told me sometimes you can start there and lateral. Any guidance? PS: freshman in HS so take it easy on me, just trying to plan ahead.
I read rich dad poor dad. At your age. Just don’t take his accounting litterally. You’re gonna want to move to LA and open up your own drop ship company after as well. It’s very non target and not prestigious but a good light read.
Lol, you get the joke, but I feel like other people aren't. There was this comment on a "prestige of your girlfriend?" thread like 4 years ago. I just can't get over how WSO this comment is, which is why I did a spinoff.
"Are there any guides on here for getting a top girlfriend? Think banker/lawyer/doctor. I really don't want to go mid-tier and settle for engineer/accountant, but friends with target girlfriends told me sometimes you can start there and lateral. Any guidance? PS: freshman in HS so take it easy on me, just trying to plan ahead.
Also appreciate any commentary on blonde vs. brunette (mostly on fit here - have heard blondes might be easier to get in to but culture is tighter with brunettes)."
Rich Dad Poor Dad is back office
The Intelligent Investor
The 5 Book Volumes of Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Acquinas
https://www.ewtnreligiouscatalogue.com/summa-theologica-5-volume-hardco…
“Written by St. Thomas Aquinas from 1265 until his death in 1274, this is his most famous work and is certainly the greatest, most ambitious, most rational book of theology ever written. It was intended as a manual for beginners as a compilation of all of the main theological teachings of that time. The Summa's topics follow a cycle: the existence of God, God's creation, Man, Man's purpose, Christ, the Sacraments, and back to God. It consists of 38 tracts, 631 questions, about 3000 articles, 10,000 objections and their answers. Hardcover. Five volumes totaling 3,022 pages.“
based Catholic gang
I read The Cloud of Unknowing a few years ago and it's a great read too, it's not too dogmatic and is very spiritual, which I feel like a lot of irreligious people would like.
As always, highly based answer from Isaiah
East of Eden
I asked for prestigious and you recommend Steinbeck? So I can read about some dust farmers?
Mckinsey's Valuation
Good one
The Art if War - Sun Tzu
Valuable lessons when staffed with an MBA associate
“Appear busy when you are not” - Sun Tzu, probably
I’ve never heard of this one. Sounds like an interesting spin on “The Art of War.” I guess “if war” is something to think about, it is probably stressing diplomacy.
Were you an English major in school? I've seen dozens of posts like this.
“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”
I've taken principles from this book and put them into investment memos multiple times. You can apply a lot of the concepts to business and gain a better perspective overnight.
The Bible, Douay-Rheims version as well as the Revised Standard Version - Catholic Edition.
The Reflections on the Revolution in France: insanely annoying run-on sentences and paragraphs that last several pages, but overall the message is interesting and this is a seminal work in traditionalist classical conservatism which I feel like a lot of people on WSO would like. Would definitely help to sparknotes it though cuz it can be hard to follow at times
Seneca's Letters of a Stoic
The Children of Húrin (and The Silmarillion too for that matter)
He asked for prestigious, that means King James Version my friend
none of that weak ass revisionist Protestant bullshit
Faust (by Goethe), Hemingway, Kafka, Borges. Not in any particular order, all read recently. Finance books are not prestigious and there is fast diminishing returns to reading too many of them
Read literature to see the world differently. Gives us some perspective outside of our own lives and the news of the day.
King James Version
King James Version isn’t a book. I think you’re missing something here.
"The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis is a Christian devotional book. It was first composed in Latin ca.1418-1427. It is a handbook for spiritual life arising from the Devotio Moderna movement, of which Kempis was a member. The Imitation is perhaps the most widely read devotional work next to the Bible, and is regarded as a devotional and religious classic. Its popularity was immediate, and it was printed 745 times before 1650. Apart from the Bible, no book has been translated into more languages than the Imitation of Christ. "
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1514694085/ref=sspa_dk_detail_1?psc=1&pd_rd_i…
Most Prestigious Version - softcover with gold on the sides:
https://www.catholiccompany.com/imitation-of-christ-i116068/?sku=104323…
I didn't like that one that much personally tbh, it seemed a bit too submissive.
"Celebrated for almost five centuries as a master of spiritual literature, 16th-century saint Teresa of Avila is one of the most beloved religious figures in history. Overcome one day by a mystical vision of a crystal castle with seven chambers, each representing a different stage in spiritual development, Teresa immediately wrote The Interior Castle. Probably her most important and widely studied work , it guides the spiritual seeker through each stage of development until the soul's final union with the divine. Free of religious dogma, this modern translation renders St. Teresa's work a beautiful and practical set of teachings for seekers of all faiths in need of spiritual guidance. It also places this classic book on spirituality —"a gem of mystical literature made accessible and relevant to the modern spiritual seeker" –Sharon Salzberg—in a contemporary context, reasserting its literary importance even after more than 400 years."
https://www.amazon.com/Interior-Castle-Teresa-Avila/dp/1594480052/ref=s…
The Prince
Having read the prince, anyone who thinks Machiavelli's writing embodied "Machiavellianism" has a poor understanding of the world, imo
The book isn't pessimistic or conniving at all. It's entirely realistic, pragmatic and generally optimistic
Many people don't read the works they reference (or don't really reflect on it), so they take a tiny piece of an idea out of context and blow it up to the extreme and replace the real idea with some bastardized, inaccurate ideology. Another good example is with Nietzsche's "god is dead"
I asked for prestigious books and these BYU guys keep pushing theology on me.
BYU theology is some wacky shit
More like Notre Dame guys (BYU is Mormon not Catholic)
We know this what’s your point
We know this what’s your point
The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky
Notes from the Underground is pretty great too. A truly fascinating read
I’d take Crime and Punishment over the Brothers K
Good read, although personally I prefer how Borthers Karamazov was something between fiction (characters), religious philosophy and reflections of Dostoevsky about death, everything camouflaged as dialogues between the characters.
Even Aliosha was the name of one of his sons which died at an early age. It has really a lof of depth.
Crime and Punishment has also interesting topics, but I think that the events prior to writing Brothers Karamazov which happened in Dostoevsky's life give a lot more weight to BK (hence, it can be seen even as a moral autobiography)
I am not commenting on this silly prestige title. More of top books, and these are in no particular order. If a finance book is your top book of all time, you need to broaden your thinking.
Art of War; Meditations; 48 Laws of Power; Culture Code; How Will You Measure Your Life; Dale Carnegie's book (game changer for me); Remains of the Day
I'd add a couple of religious books here, but people are going to MS me. So keeping it high-level.
The most prestigious books are the classics from the western canon.
https://thinkingasleverage.wordpress.com/book-lists/mortimer-adlers-rea…
Try Grant's Interest Rate Observer for prestige.
Absalom absalom by Faulkner
Longest sentence in the English language
Or
Contributions to Philosophy, Martin Heidegger
Crime and Punishment - thought it overwrought and borderline unreadable, but had a dozen people recommend it to me
Pure Theory of Capital by Hayek - Hayek is the man, but again, overwrought and seemed as though Hayek was writing to help flesh his ideas out instead of putting a finished product on paper
Road to Serfdom - Hayek's masterpiece
The Bible - KJV only, the protestants have run wild w/ horrendous translations designed to sound "modern" at the expense of sounding wise, beautiful, and as aligned as possible w/ the original text
all great picks that I agree with. KJV is nice, but it has its own translation issues, and as a Catholic I'm pretty much morally obliged to hold that view, but at the end of the day we all read the same stories.
Been meaning to reread Crime and Punishment again.
KJV is a Protestant Bible tho
KJV is a Protestant Bible tho
Not necessarily. The Apocrypha contains the remaining books.
https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Apocrypha-Books/
KJV is Protestant
Do you get a dollar every time you say that?
The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner
Moby Dick (if you can get through it)
Anything by Camus or Sartre (personal favorites are The Plague and No Exit)
Russian literature (Crime and Punishment, Notes from the Underground, etc.)
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Hamlet
Have sound and fury o. The shelf, need to open it up. Also need to read more Russian lit, woolf and Camus
Yes for sure. Also a big fan of Kafka short stories (as well as The Trial, Metamorphasis). Turgenev's First Love is also great
Margin of Safety, goes for hundreds of dollars on ebay/amazon and is so prestigious libraries have to lock the book up
Seems like a book for people who do missionary with their shirts on
Holy fuck Amazon has it for 788 dollars. Anyone actually read it?
It's out of print so that's why. Just find it online.
Or just find a pdf like everyone else
Jeeves and Wooster books by pg Wodehouse.
Investment Banking by Rosenbaum.
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Jerked off to Ulysses
Anything which was written pre-1800 or is held in a library of equivalent age is more prestigious than any modern book in my eyes
The most influential book in my life was Mere Christianity by CS Lewis
The works of the Latin authors like Pliny, Catullus, Cicero, Virgil, Marcus Aurelius etc.
Are you reading these in Latin
Used to. Definitely makes Catullus's work a lot more meaningful since it's read in the proper rhythm that way. But the prose pieces like Cicero's letters or Meditations are a lot easier to digest in English for obvious reasons.
Mastery by Robert Greene. Changed the trajectory of my life.
War and Peace by Tolstoy.
Very actual rightnow
Crime and Punishment
The Machiavellians by James Burnham. Democracy: the God that Failed by Hoppe for my libertarian-minded friends.
Class by Paul Fussell. It’s about prestige. So, I suppose that makes it prestigious…
Illo neque ab qui magni unde. Voluptatem voluptates est facere hic aperiam quidem. Dolores et officiis sunt ut et. Ab fugit qui modi reiciendis quam eius totam.
Dolor fugiat vel nemo ipsum quod. Beatae et modi laudantium sed et et incidunt. Quam et ipsa alias repudiandae et. Rerum vitae voluptatum odio et.
Et odio enim voluptatem maiores aut in provident. Aut ad est eveniet deleniti adipisci. Non natus fugiat quia et mollitia architecto.
Repellendus eum animi quaerat deserunt commodi dicta est. Minus earum rem totam impedit. Unde dolor harum dolor aliquam vel fuga quia quia. Et quia cupiditate et officiis sint ut qui. Possimus ut impedit aut dolorem.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Aut hic velit odio odit rerum eligendi. Aut nihil distinctio occaecati voluptatem temporibus. Eveniet voluptatem dolores culpa natus.
Quis eaque vel exercitationem quia doloremque ut impedit. Commodi voluptas dicta qui qui. Aliquam qui recusandae ut.
Et velit culpa eligendi aliquid ut veritatis adipisci. Voluptatem accusamus voluptatem autem deserunt debitis. Facilis et voluptatem molestiae dolorem doloremque. Sunt est ad et nihil voluptas est.
Dolorum magnam voluptates officia dolores quod consequuntur et. Ab recusandae quo modi et. Dolores dolore sint sit tenetur. Ut tenetur reiciendis nihil ipsa et. Minima voluptatem nisi et harum animi praesentium qui.
Est non praesentium corrupti aliquam. Enim sed sint nihil.
Doloribus accusantium sed itaque numquam vel. Quia sit sit possimus qui eveniet nobis. Nemo minus quas odio. Voluptate ut pariatur ab eligendi voluptas ut dolor odio. Aut aperiam voluptatibus aspernatur doloribus voluptatem temporibus. Occaecati quis sint laborum et aut non laudantium. Nam nisi officiis suscipit voluptatum dolor.
Sed dolor voluptatem cupiditate possimus facilis voluptatibus voluptatem quam. Optio iure eveniet at vitae. Deleniti maxime distinctio cupiditate facilis adipisci voluptas inventore.
Dolor hic asperiores eum veritatis consequuntur. Laudantium qui deserunt nostrum est adipisci occaecati. Et reiciendis ea assumenda sunt.
Nemo nihil quaerat officia sequi. Sed et et quos in veniam.