Any Good Books To Read?
Running out of books and need a few good ones. If you guys have any recommendations for investment banking related or anything y'all thought were intellectually stimulating.
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Discussion Materials by Bill Keenan if you haven’t read it. Very well written and humorous. I personally couldn’t put it down once I started.
SB’d, multiple analysts in my class read it and we all thought it was really important. It’s not gonna teach you technicals or be a party story, it’s gonna tell you what you’re actually signing up for in investment banking, and it’s pretty funny
Agreed
non-finance book that gets the brain pumping -> Something Deeply Hidden by Sean Carrol tells Quantum Physics in laymans terms... Mind trip and addictive
SB'd, was exactly looking for this
Fabric of the cosmos
The Big Picture is the only Carrol work I've read, but it was a pretty thorough mindfuck. would def recommend.
Something Deeply Hidden is next on the list.
Non-finance: Atomic Habits, Thinking Fast and Slow, This Is Your Brain on Music, Sapiens, Malcolm Gladwell books
Economics/finance (that don't feel like a Wiley textbook): The Prize: Epic Quest for Oil..., Alchemists: Three Central Bankers, King of Capital, More Money than Gold, Dead Companies Walking, Invisible Hands, Values by Carney, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Gates
Contemporary/satire: Anything by Vonnegut, Coupland or Sedaris
Thought sapiens was garbage
the morons that read sapiens usually have zero clue that the book was written by a gay jewish transhumanist from the world economic forum
DONT READ SAPIENS. You will love the book if you read it because it confirms a lot of biases that you already have about anthro, but a lot of its theories are unproven and some are flat out wrong.
Would recommend reading Crude Volatility instead of The Prize. Robert McNally basically covers the history of energy up until the turn of the century in a similar fashion to The Prize, but then adds the 21st century.
Yep, read Alchemists in high school which inspired me to go into finance
The Rational Optimist
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Pitchbook: A Banking Analyst's Tale of Markets, Millions, and Mayhem.
Jeez piling up the MS? Did you guys read the chapter preview on Amazon?
I liked it
Congrats on publishing!
Not sure why you got so much MS. It is a solid book. I would recommend it for a fun read.
Thanks! I edited the post which originally noted that it was my book. These types of reactions are a phenomenon which I only discovered after publishing. If you tell some people that you published a book, they immediately assume that it's bad and will even tease you about it. Really really weird reaction in my opinion. I bet none of those MS drops actually read the preview on Amazon.
barbarians at the gate & den of thieves are up there for me for finance reads, very interesting
The Caesar's Palace Coup (CZR restructuring book ft. Apollo, TPG, Oaktree, etc) is an amazing read and just released
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Business: Understand the Market Cycle, the Lean StartUp, The McKinsey Way, Principles by Ray Dalio
Psychology: Thinking fast and slow, Influence, High Performance Habits, Atomic Habits
All books by Robert Greene
Other: The Power of Now, The Art of Leaning, Genghis Khan and the making of the modern world, The Game
- Market Wizards
- New Market Wizards
- Unknown Market Wizards
No mention yet of The Outsiders (Thorndike?)
Widely regarded as the best book ever written (content and readability) about capital allocation, which whether you realize it or not, or define it that way or not, is what bankers think about all day every day. And I say that as someone who thinks that 99% of business books are worthless.
A lot of people don't understand capital allocation on this forum. Too focused on the ib to PE to mba path while chasing "prestige."
Enjoyed this one, was a good read
Do people still care about this book? Felt like Bill Ackman sullied it for me with his whole VRX call.
Any other book suggestions, I really enjoyed the outsiders?
There's some good books by patrick boyle if you haven't taken a look at them yet.
Btw I’m not sure why a college student would read finance books for fun. You shall be out partying outside of your study time
Psychology: Thinking, Fast and Slow (as mentioned above); Thinking in Bets; Predictably Irrational
Sci-Fi: The Three Body Problem; Stranger in a Strange Land; To Hold Up The Sky; The Foundation Series
Philosophy: The Screwtape Letters (as mentioned above); Meditations(as mentioned above); The Critique of Pure Reason; Free Will
Other: Cried, The Beloved Country; Anything by Tom Robbins
The whole trilogy for Three Body Problem is crazy good. Definitely my favorite read of the year.
Some good books on economics include The Invisible Hook by Peter Leeson, Reinventing the Bazaar by John McMilan, and The Wealth of Nations. One cool book on the history of clockmaking (real party, right?) is Longitude by Dava Sobel.
Maybe some Rand (The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, or Anthem) or The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas, or maybe some Dostoyevsky for good measure. Choose any of those if you want a marathon!
Greenlights - Matty Mac
One of the best books I have read. Plus the audible is done by Matthew. Voice of an angle.
Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov
These are my picks:
Finance-related
On psychology:
Non Finance: Brothers Karamzov, Name of the Wind, Midnights Children
Finance: Wall Street(Henwood)
Honestly, wish I could be of help here, but I can't read, per my GMAT verbal score
.
Incerto series by Nicholas Taleb
"Skin in the game" is by far my favorite
Some great suggestions here and a few names I’ll be checking out - thanks all.
A few additional names from memory (trying to avoid duplication):
Introduction to the Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America - the best (most readable) organised collection of Buffet’s thoughts on various topics I’ve read. Would love a more up to date version in this format
Poor Charlie’s Almanack - Munger on life/philosophy/psychology. Not a huge amount on investing but still a great read
Accounting for Growth & Investing for Growth by Terry Smith - AfG is an (outdated but relevant) guide to financial statement manipulation, IfG is more a collection of (admittedly repetitive) thoughts on growth/quality investing
Private Capital Investing - good primer on fund mandates, fee structures, philosophies etc.
McKinsey Valuation - some good concepts around the interaction of growth and ROIC, why EPS accretion is bullshit etc.
21st Century Monetary Policy (Bernanke) - interesting history and rationale for various policy shifts, relationships between presidents and the Fed etc. Shame it wasn’t published 6mths later to cover the current inflationary environment
Wolf of Wall Street - if you enjoy the film you’ll love the book
Y’all got time to read? Must be nice.
It is commodity specific but “40 Classic Crude Trades” was a good read for anyone interested in S&T for O/G.
World War Z is really good
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi will make you cry (in a good way)
This was a good book and quick read.
seconded
The Sex God Method
A must-read. Will change from econ books
Depends on what you're looking for; for finance, I would only recommend technical books. Can find some of my favorite's below:
- Inside the Yield Book
- Distressed Debt Analysis
- Creating Value through Corporate Restructuring
- Damodaran on Valuation or McKinsey's latest edition
Non-finance books, I've always been a fan of dystopian societies or John Grisham's work. It's really whatever floats your boat.
Anything by Nietzsche
Look honestly the reading lists given above are all a bunch of finance wankery or really shit entry tier philosophy (Meditations, come on!), so as a former humanities student will try to avoid both as much as possible. I’m a bloke and the below are all pretty male experiences, so adjust based on gender and desired outcome. Also personally I find it a huge turn off when someone can’t talk about a piece of fiction they read:
I’ll bite - Green Eggs and Ham is next up for my book club and the reviews look pretty good.
Classic and short book: Tuesdays with Morrie. Really put some things into perspective for me in terms of priorities after dealing with some challenging events.
When Genius Failed (about LTCM)
Never Finished - David Goggins
Cancer Ward- Solzhenitsyn
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