I’m currently thinking about starting a weekly book club thread on a particular title that we would read together. Every week, I would have a summary post of my thoughts for the chunk from that week, and people could respond based on what they’ve read or what I’ve said. It’s hard for people to get into reading sometimes, so my goal is that these weekly threads would be edifying for the user base here regardless of whether they actually read the passage.
Thoughts on titles you’d like to see? Economics, history, science, financial stuff is all on the table. Non-fiction preferred. I’d prefer the title to be useful, but not necessarily something I (or other people) have read. Cheers
EDIT: I'd like to announce that the title for January 2022 will be "More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite" by Sebastian Mallaby. The discussion threads will be subdivided as follows:
Week 1 (01/08): Chapter I - IV (A.W. Jones, Michael Steinhardt, Paul Samuelson, Quantum Fund)
Week 2 (01/15): Chapter V - VIII (Tiger, Paul Tudor Jones, Stanley Druckenmiller, 1994 bond crisis)
Week 3 (01/22): Chapter IX - XII (1998 Russian crisis, LTCM, Dot-Com Bubble, Tom Steyer)
Week 4 (01/29): Chapter XIII - XVI (RenTech, Amaranth, John Paulson, and the subprime crisis)
Looking forward to reading the book. It's about 17.7 pages a day. My target for the book club is 15 pages, which at 1 page per minute is achievable for an investment banker's schedule.
Au contraire, if you shared that list with me (DM is fine), then I could cover some of those titles here.
I’d love to get your list as well mine still has some gaps!
Great idea I'm in, please do keep us posted
I'd be interested in this, not sure if I can participate every week but I can try.
+1 SB. Definitely! Would keep it to finance. Stay away from direct economics unless you want the posts to devolve in political bickering.
+1 SB. I mentioned economics because I think conceptual titles are conducive to the book club format. A finance title like Barbarians at the Gate, while a perfectly fine book, is a bit too episodic to have multiple posts to write on it. This one will definitely be a finance book. It’ll probably be in one of the two buckets:
1. Biography of a business figure, like a Ron Chernow sort of deal
2. Historical, like Against the Gods
Thanks for posting this. I think I may potentially be interested in reading your summaries of interesting, finance related books. Particularly if you do the work of reading like the Ron Chernow biographies and put together like interesting summaries. Either way, good luck and best wishes :) happy and healthy 2022!
Bump
Are we thinking new books, or new and old books? Might be a cool idea to start off with an old book most of us have all read just to try and set a rythym and then start adding more contemporary and then brand new titles.
Also, what about podcasts? Again, something else to listen to while hitting the elliptical or running.
+ 1SB. I’m fine with either, so long as it’s a title I think I would enjoy.
Podcasts are probably a no for now, at least at first. Thanks so much!
im in
Count me in, fantastic idea. Next book on my list is “More money than god”. Have other names from the pretty standard lists that are on my list and can recommend more, but I’m sure you can come up with better ones
One of my favorite mentors really liked that, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’d love to read about Rentech.
EDIT: for a split second, I was thinking about The Man who Solved the Market, although More Money has a chapter on them too
Have you read “a man for all markets” by Edward Thorpe? Really liked that one. Not super hardcore finance, it’s very autobiographical. 2/3 about his life growing up (very interesting dude) and his career in academia, then he made it his mission to basically invent counting cards at blackjack before launching his quant hedge fund. Enjoyable read
Ironic. I'm reading that one right now based on another post here on WSO that listed off some good reads.
This sounds like fun and I’d love to join in
Interested
I’m in
I'd be totally interested in this. Currently building my list for 2022 (not totally set even a day before the New Year lol), and my company book club is kinda dead. Would absolutely love to be part of a book club with people part of this forum. kellycriterion share with me some of your list if you'd be cool with that
I'm trying to definitely do some books in investing and corporate strategy in the next year, but come from an engineering background so science-y and medical stuff would be cool too
i’ll be in!
im in
Fantastic idea and offerings like these is what keeps me around on this site. I'd love to take part!
This is great idea and interested. Keep us updated
im in - can we add this to the list: https://www.amazon.com/New-Map-Energy-Climate-Nations-ebook/dp/B084GDG8…
Daniel Yergin is great, would recommend The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power.
This book is the reason why I'm trying to break into the insanely lucrative world of energy derivatives.
Interested
monthly seems more reasonable than ripping through a book a week
Yeah, the thinking was weekly threads on a book. 1 book a month, so about a quarter or a fifth a week.
ah gotcha
I'm interested as well. Would also love to see some non-finance related titles (maybe later down the line)!
I'd be down for that
Count me in
Count me in. But can only ask - please no Barbarians / Liars Poker type books. Those have little depth and I’d think the people who matter are reading real literature (think Russian / English authors from late 19th c.)
Strongly agree.
You’ll be pleased to know that higher up in the thread, I explicitly said Barbarians was not conducive to this format.
Liar’s Poker is a really superficial account of larger-than-life personalities. It lacks depth, even if it’s an entertaining read for many.
It’s generally going to be conceptual, historical, or biographical. Am I ever going to be able to get people to read Middlemarch or something? No. But fiction’s on the table if I like it and think there’s buy-in.
Your earlier posts can’t stop me cause I can’t read :)
Yea agreed we can’t get everyone with our schedules to read brothers karamazov or such. Maybe notes from underground or novellas like that - or kafkas metamorphosis while cliche - or the stranger. The real benefit is we can relate it to our shared experience of the world (grinding to get into finance, existential implications thereof)
What books/authors would you suggest?
What books/authors would you suggest?
For sure, I already read a lot of non-fiction on economics and finance for work. I do like those Liars Poker, Den of Thieves, and Black Edge style pulpy finance novels, but that's more for entertainment than enrichment as others mentioned.
Beyond educational textbooks used in the classroom, a non-fiction finance title that I found worth reading is Confusion de Confusiones by Joseph de la Vega.
It explores a lot of interesting philosophical themes and events in history's first stock market. It's kind of arcane being from the 1600s, but the sorts of tricks and scandals it describes are still alive on Wall Street. The non-fiction finance books with the most depth are definitely educational texts, but that may not be so exciting or practical to read in a book club.
Here is my finance book reading list from last year, would be willing to re-read any of these or similar books:
Very S&T list. Thanks for the suggestions.
Count me in too!
I think that each member could contribute a suggested list, and then we could vote on what book to read next on a weekly basis.
I’m in
I'd be in, in an economics book club already and loving it - would love to see/do the same for finance.
I’m in
Interested!
interested, great idea
I'm in!
I'm in!
interested!
Interested
So you are basically offering to do a bunch of free work and asking us how we feel about it? Sounds awesome. You’ll be like our own free Blinkist.
Interested
does WSO have a poll feature? Would be useful for figuring out what future books would be.
Yeah, I definitely encourage people sending DMs about book choice. The thought there is that I would combine suggestions with my own thoughts on a Google form and tack it on to the last week of the prior book.
Do you have a schedule for the year, or do you know which book will be next? Can't join now but may be interested in the future
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