List of selected personal finance, economics and related books

Each book has a brief description that were either written from scratch, derived from Amazon.com descriptions or a Morningstar.com book review list. The lengths of the reviews below do not indicate a higher value for those books, just what I was thinking at the time.

The books are sorted by primary topic, although there is considerable overlap of the topics in many of the books in the following lists. Some of the topics might at first seem off topic (e.g., SRI investing, behavioral finance, globalization, economics, public policy, the environment and energy sources, and risk of rare events), however they impact your personal finance in the long term and need to be taken into account.

The books are not sorted within each of the primary topic lists - they are generally listed as they occurred to me (not always). These lists should be better organized by topic or sub-topics and will be reorganized from time to time. Some of the books have come out in revised editions, so getting the latest edition might be a good idea.

For novice investors who want just get started learning the basics, books from topic 2. Portfolio design and asset allocation (introductory), would be of primary interest. These include defining terms such as portfolio, asset and asset allocation and go on from there. To simplify things, the following list of a few good introductory books is given below.

Since there are so many fine web sites dealing this type of material, there is a list at the end of the book list 11. A few selected Investing and Personal Finance related Web sites. However, the primary focus of this Web page list is books - not Web sites.

List of a few good introductory books

The same issues are covered in more, but still introductary, depth are: Common Sense on Mutual Funds by Bogle, and B. Malkiel's A Random Walk Down Wall Street. Good books on bond/bond-fund investing are The Bond Book by Thou, and The Only Guide to a Winning Bond Strategy You'll Ever Need by Swedroe.

In addition, the Bogleheads.org personal finance forum has written two books The Bogleheads' Guide to Retirement Planning and The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing that are also useful. They have a financial wiki with definitions and discussion on many of these topics.

There are many of the other great books listed below that go into much more detail and explanation for those who want to get into these and related topics in more depth. Many of those other books can also be considered good introductary books as well.

Notation

• Books I liked and would generally recommend are marked with a '$'.
• Books more useful for more advanced readers are marked with a '#'.
• Books with no '$' mark are still useful and included for that reason.

There are many other sources of personal finance information on the Internet and elsewhere, but they will not be addressed here. This is strictly a book list.

A few books that are good introductions to this area are: The Investor's Manifesto, The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, and A Random Walk Down Wall Street.

The primary topics lists

1. Risk in investing -
one needs to understand risk in order to invest intelligently. These books discuss the definition(s) and ways to think about risk.

2. Portfolio design and asset allocation (introductory) -
how to actually build an investment portfolio of stocks and bonds.

2.1 Portfolio design and asset allocation (more advanced) -
covers more advance topics or treatments of portfolio construction.

3. Bonds (as subset of a portfolio) -
demystifies bonds used as part of an investment portfolio.

4. Value investing -
value investing methodology as in "buy low, sell high".

5. Behavioral finance -
how human behavior influences our investing, and other, decisions.

5.1 Globalization, economics, bubble history, open source movement, and public policy -
the effects and history of globalization, economics, and public policy.

6. Styles of some successful investment managers -
the philosophies of some successful investment mangagers.

7. Stock Investing -
discusses some of the details of fundamental analysis of stock investing.

8. Fractals, finance and fat-tail event risk -
how the simple Gaussian models commonly used by many in finance are wrong. Although seemingly off topic, it is directly related to portfolio risk.

9. Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) and economies -
discusses how investing for returns as well as our values can be achieved.

10. Retirement income distribution -
describes the second part of investing, distributing income safely during retirement.

11. A few selected Investing and Personal Finance related Web sites

$ The Quest for Alpha: The Holy Grail of Investing by Larry E. Swedroe (2011) [From Amazon.com] "The final word on passive vs. active investing. The debate on active investing-stock picking and market timing-versus passive investing-markets are highly efficient and almost impossible to outperform-has raged for decades. Which side is right? In The Quest for Alpha: The Holy Grail of Investing, author Larry E. Swedroe puts an end to the debate, proving once and for all that active investing is likely to prove futile as the associated expenses-costs, fees, and time spent analyzing individual stocks and the overall market-are likely to exceed any benefits gained. The book * Presents research, data, and quotations that reveal it's extremely difficult to outperform the market; * Explains why investors should focus on asset allocation, fund construction, costs, tax efficiency, and the building of a globally diversified portfolio that minimizes, if not eliminates, the taking of idiosyncratic, uncompensated risks; * Other titles by Swedroe: The Only Guide to Alternative Investments You'll Ever Need and The Only Guide You'll Ever Need for the Right Financial Plan. Investors are on a never-ending search for a money manager who will deliver returns above the appropriate risk-adjusted benchmark, aka the "Holy Grail of Investing." The Quest for Alpha demonstrates that it's a loser's game-while it's possible to win, it's so unlikely that you shouldn't try."

$ The Power of Passive Investing: More Wealth with Less Work by Richard A Ferri (2010) [Amazon.com] "Time and again, individual investors discover, all too late, that actively picking stocks is a loser's game. The alternative lies with index funds. This passive form of investing allows you to participate in the markets relatively cheaply while prospering all the more because the money saved on investment expenses stays in your pocket. In his latest book, investment expert Richard Ferri shows you how easy and accessible index investing is. Along the way, he highlights how successful you can be by using this passive approach to allocate funds to stocks, bonds, and other prudent asset classes. * Addresses the advantages of index funds over portfolios that are actively managed, * Offers insights on index-based funds that provide exposure to designated broad markets and don't make bets on individual securities."

$ Are You a Stock or a Bond?: Create Your Own Pension Plan for a Secure Financial Future by Moshe A. Milevsky (2008) [Amazon.com] "...In an era when traditional corporate pensions are disappearing, Social Security’ s sustainability is in question, healthcare costs are skyrocketing, and society is dumping more and more financial risk squarely onto your shoulders, Moshe Milevsky helps you comprehensively integrate all the opportunities and risks in your life: your career risks, your portfolio risks, your housing risks, and even your personal inflation and longevity risks that could lead you to financial regret and a ruined retirement. Then, he introduces a powerful, new framework for thinking about and managing your financial future that you can use to systematically reduce your vulnerability to each of these risks and, thus, generate long-term financial security. To maximize your investment returns and protect yourself and your family, you must learn to think of yourself as a small company, with assets, liabilities, a balance sheet, an income statement, and real shareholder equity. The composition and choices you make with your financial capital should reflect the nature and security of your career or job, which is your unique “human capital.” So, for example, if You, Inc. is like a “stock,” make sure your retirement savings are tilted toward “bonds.” If your job is more secure and You, Inc. is essentially a “bond,” then make sure your retirement savings are tilted toward “stocks.” Get personal with your investments and make your financial capital serve and protect your human capital. Factoring in your unique “human capital” adds a new dimension to financial planning which is a critical next step for sound and effective investing."

$ The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street by Justin Fox (2009) [From Amazon.com] "Starred Review. At the core of the current financial crisis has been the widely held assumption that markets behave rationally. Fox, Time magazine editor-at-large, isn't the first to bring scrutiny—or censure—to the conceit, but his analysis is singularly compelling, and the rare business history that reads like a thriller. Fox leads us on a chronological journey of modern economic theory, featuring the cast of scholars who constructed the 20th- and 21st-century financial landscape, from Irving Fisher to such post-WWII figures as Milton Friedman, Harry Markowitz, Franco Modigliani and Merton Miller, Jack Treynor and William Sharpe. Fox offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse at academia's finest, complete with amusing anecdotes about the players and their theories, and illustrates how our economic behaviors and markets have been shaped by a gradually refined theory holding that the stock market prices are both random and perfectly rational. A must-read for anyone interested in the markets, our economy or government, this dense but spellbinding work brings modern finance and economics to life."

$ When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change by Mohamed El-Erian (2008) [From Amazon.com] "When Markets Collide is a timely alert to the fundamental changes taking place in today's global economic and financial systems--and a call to action for investors who may fall victim to misinterpreting important signals. While some have tended to view asset class mispricings as mere 'noise,' this compelling book shows why they are important signals of opportunities and risks that will shape the market for years to come. One of today's most respected names in finance, Mohamed El-Erian puts recent events in their proper context, giving you the tools that can help you interpret the markets, benefit from global economic change, and navigate the risks."

$ Capital Ideas Evolving by Peter L. Bernstein (2007)is the updated sequel to Bernstein's classic 1992 work "Capital Ideas" that documented the current best thinking on MPT, CAPM, and other academic research dealing with "Beta". The new book adds new academic insights into additional areas including behavioral economics, rethinking some of the simplifying assumptions of these older models, and other areas dealing with "Alpha".

$ Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein (1998) [From Amazon.com] "Risk management, which assumes that future risks can be understood, measured and to some extent predicted, is the focus of this solid, thoroughgoing history. Probability theory, pioneered by 17th-century French mathematicians Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat, has made possible the design of great bridges, electric power utilities and insurance policies. The statistical sampling methods invented by dour Swiss scientist Jacob Bernoulli undergird diverse activities such as the testing of new drugs, stock-picking and wine tasting. Bernstein (Capital Ideas) animates his narrative with a colorful cast of risk-analyzers, including gambling addict Girolamo Cardano, 16th-century Italian physician to the Pope; and John Maynard Keynes, whose concerns over economic uncertainty compelled him to recommend an active, interventionist role for government. Bernstein also traces the development of business forecasting, game theory, insurance and derivatives, and surveys recent advances in risk forecasting made possible through chaos theory and by the development of neural networks."

$ Winning the Loser's Game by Charles D. Ellis (2002) is another good review of the story of risk and the investment industry, why market timing is futal in the long run, why indexing is a winner's game.

$ More than You Know by Michael Mauboussin (updated Sept. 2007) is the Legg Mason chief investment strategist. The book is an great collection of wide-ranging short pieces discussing risk from various points of view including behavioral finance.

$ Hedgehogging by Barton Biggs (2006) discusses the ups and (many) downs and risks of the hedge fund industry and investing in general.

$ The New Financial Order: Risk in the 21st century by Robert J. Shiller (2004) discusses risk in various asset classes and possible ways of hedging some of that risk.

A Mathematician Plays The Stock Market by John Allen Paulos (2004) describes how even mathematicians can get it wrong. (However, Taleb, Mauboussin, Mandelbrot, and many others got it right since the market has unexpected fat tail (distribution) events - i.e., market crashes as well as jumps!).

$ Capital Ideas: The Improbable Origins of Modern Wall Street by Peter L. Bernstein (1993) documents (at that time) the current best thinking on MPT, CAPM, and other academic research on investing.

$ Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street by William Poundstone (2006) (From Amazon review) "Fortune's Formula is a fascinating study of the connections between such seemingly unrelated topics as gambling, information theory, stock investing, and applied mathematics. The story involves the stunning brainpower of men such as MIT professor Claude Shannon, who single-handedly invented information theory, the science behind the Internet and all digital media; Ed Thorpe; and John Kelly of Bell Laboratories, who developed the 'Kelly criterion,' a now-legendary investment strategy for maximizing growth while controlling risk."

Note: many of the other books mentioned in these lists also touch on the risk sub topics.

$ The Only Guide You'll Ever Need for the Right Financial Plan: Managing Your Wealth, Risk, and Investments by Larry E. Swedroe, Kevin Grogan, Tiya Lim (2010) (From Amazon review) "The Only Guide You'll Ever Need for the Right Financial Plan: Managing Your Wealth, Risk,and Investments Asset allocation? Investment planning? Risk management? What role does each play in your financial security? All these elements are critical, but how do they work together to create your overall financial plan? From Larry Swedroe—the author of the bestselling series of 'The Only Guide' investment books—with Kevin Grogan and Tiya Lim comes a step-by-step handbook that shows you how to develop a winning personal investment strategy and reveals what it takes to make that strategy part of your overall financial plan. The Only Guide You'll Ever Need for the Right Financial Plan focuses on the "art" of investing and gives you the information you need to create a strategy that is tailor-made for your particular situation. Designed for savvy investors and professional advisors, this book offers the vital information needed for developing and implementing an overall strategic financial plan. In this essential resource, Swedroe outlines the basics in asset allocation and other investment planning concepts and helps you: Design an investment policy statement and an individual asset allocation plan; Locate assets in the most tax-efficient manner; Maintain your portfolio's risk profile in the most cost-effective and tax-efficient manner; Integrate risk management and estate planning issues into the plan; And much more. The Only Guide You'll Ever Need for the Right Financial Plan offers a handy tool to help you make more informed and prudent decisions that will go a long way to ensure a secure financial future."

$ The Investor's Manifesto: Preparing for Prosperity, Armageddon, and Everything in Between by William J. Bernstein (2010, Rel. Nov/2009). A must read. This book makes his earlier works The Intelligent Asset Allocator and The Four Pillars of Investing much more accessible. The Preface, Chapter 1 and part of Chapter 2 are may be downloaded from his Web site efficientfrontier.com/ as a PDF www.efficientfrontier.com/files/TIM.pdf. [From Amazon.com] "As recently as a generation or two ago, the lack of financial ability wasn't a handicap for the average person. But in today's world—where most of us have been forced to manage our own investment and retirement portfolios—it has become essential to understand the finer points of our financial life. While the meltdown of 2008–2009 has compounded the complexity of the investment landscape, timeless investment principles can help you navigate even the toughest investment terrain. That's why bestselling author William Bernstein—a grassroots hero to independent investors—has written The Investor's Manifesto. Approaching the problems of investing and saving from the perspective of someone who has had to figure it out for himself, Bernstein knows firsthand how difficult these endeavors can be—especially for those with little professional experience in this arena. Now, with the current market maelstrom as a backdrop, he skillfully describes what it takes to plan for a lifetime of investing, discussing stocks and bonds as well as the relationship between risk and return. Written in a straightforward and accessible style, The Investor's Manifesto:* Explores the theoretical basis of investing and designing portfolios, drawn in large part from financial history; * Offers insights on dealing with the emotions and attitudes that routinely cripple investors; * Discusses how to deal with the investment industry when executing strategies designed for anything from saving for retirement to putting a child through college; * Addresses ways in which individual investors can construct diversified portfolios that can blunt potentially damaging market forces; * Covers the concept of Pascal's Wager—which will enable you to identify and avoid worst-case investing scenarios. If there were ever a time to take control of your financial future, it is now. Potentially generous returns are available to the brave, the disciplined, and the liquid. If you follow the advice found here and keep your head while others lose theirs, then you will have a fighting chance of avoiding the financial pitfalls in front of you and profiting over the long-term."

$ The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns by John C. Bogle (2007) makes a nice non-technical case for index investing. Bogle started Vanguard. [From Amazon.com] "Investing is all about common sense. Owning a diversified portfolio of stocks and holding it for the long term is a winner’s game. Trying to beat the stock market is theoretically a zero-sum game (for every winner, there must be a loser), but after the substantial costs of investing are deducted, it becomes a loser’s game. Common sense tells us—and history confirms—that the simplest and most efficient investment strategy is to buy and hold all of the nation’s publicly held businesses at very low cost. The classic index fund that owns this market portfolio is the only investment that guarantees you with your fair share of stock market returns. To learn how to make index investing work for you, there’s no better mentor than legendary mutual fund industry veteran John C. Bogle. Over the course of his long career, Bogle—founder of the Vanguard Group and creator of the world’s first index mutual fund—has relied primarily on index investing to help Vanguard’s clients build substantial wealth. Now, with The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, he wants to help you do the same. Filled with in-depth insights and practical advice, The Little Book of Common Sense Investing will show you how to incorporate this proven investment strategy into your portfolio. It will also change the very way you think about investing. Successful investing is not easy. (It requires discipline and patience.) But it is simple. For it’s all about common sense. ...".

$ A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing (Completely Revised and Updated) by Burton Malkiel (10th edition 2011) is a classic on markets and their behavior for both the novice and more advanced reader. Malkiel is finance professor and was on the Vanguard board of directors for many years. A must read. [From Amazon.com] "The best investment guide money can buy, with over 1.5 million copies sold, now fully revised and updated. Especially in the wake of the financial meltdown, readers will hunger for Burton G. Malkiel’s reassuring, authoritative, gimmick-free, and perennially best-selling guide to investing. Long established as the first book to purchase before starting a portfolio, A Random Walk Down Wall Street features new material on the Great Recession and the global credit crisis as well as an increased focus on the long-term potential of emerging markets. Malkiel also evaluates the full range of investment opportunities in today’s volatile markets, from stocks, bonds, and money markets to real estate investment trusts and insurance, home ownership, and tangible assets such as gold and collectibles. These comprehensive insights, along with the book’s classic life-cycle guide to investing, chart a course for anyone seeking a calm route through the turbulent waters of the financial markets."

$ The Elements of Investing by B.G. Malkiel, C.D. Ellis (2009) [From Amazon.com] "A timeless, easy-to-read guide on life-long investment principles that can help any investor succeed. The Elements of Investing has a single-minded goal: to teach the principles of investing in the same pared-to-bone manner that Professor William Strunk Jr. once taught composition to students at Harvard, using his classic little book, The Elements of Style. With great daring, Ellis and Malkiel imagined their own Little Red Schoolhouse course in investing for every investor around the world-and then penned this book. The Elements of Investing hacks away at all the overtrading and over thinking so predominant in the hyperactive thought patterns of the average investor. Malkiel and Ellis offer investors a set of simple but powerful thoughts on how to challenge Mr. Market at his own game, and win by not losing. All the need-to-know rules and investment principles can be found here. * Contains sound investment advice and simple principles of investing from two of the most respected individuals in the investment world * Burton G. Malkiel is the bestselling author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street, and Charles D. Ellis is the bestselling author of Winning the Loser's Game, * Shows how to deal with an investor's own worst enemies: fear and greed. A disciplined approach to investing, complemented by conviction, is all you need to succeed. This timely guide will help you develop these skills and make the most of your time in today's market".

$ The New Coffeehouse Investor: How to Build Wealth, Ignore Wall Street, and Get on with Your Life by Bill Schultheis (2009) [From Amazon.com] "This little how-to-invest book, which elegantly summarizes our common worries about how to build wealth, was initially published 11 years ago. This updated, revised, and revamped edition stands the test of time—and of updating. Seattle-based Schultheis states his three principles of investing—allocate assets, approximate stock-market average, and save—then proceeds to expand and expound with personal stories and provocative questions. When is enough enough? What’s behind this Wall Street obsession to beat the market? Why do we need to lead a penny-pinching life today for a high retirement style tomorrow? Forget the complicated formulas, the diversity of spreadsheets. Concentrate instead, he advises, on understanding your burn rate, the meaning of diversification, and the value of being on financial autopilot. Like his peers (Suze Orman et al.), the author exposes two myths: “no load” mutual funds and “great companies make great investments.” All in all, solid and comfortable investment counsel that will help balance (and, eventually, grow) your balance sheet. Appended: partial list of index funds; notes; additional reading.".

$ The Little Book of Main Street Money: 21 Simple Truths that Help Real People Make Real Money by Johnathan Clements (2009) [From Amazon.com' "Street Smart Tips for Main Street: 1. Don’t pay an insurance company to shoulder risks you can afford to shoulder yourself. 2. To make it easier to amass enough for retirement, aim to start saving no later than age 30. 3. Make it a point to sock away tax refunds, year-end bonuses, overtime pay, and any other extra money you receive. 4. Mentally divide your portfolio into growth money and safe money – and expect a rough ride from the former and comfort from the latter. 5. The harder you try to beat the market, the more likely you are to fail, thanks to the investment costs involved. 6. By building a portfolio that is unlikely to suffer big short-term losses, you should improve your long-run investment compounding. 7. Unless your health is poor, plan on a retirement that lasts until age 90 – and maybe longer. 8. Resist following the crowd, whether it’s chasing hot performers in bull markets or shunning stocks during market declines. 9. Before purchasing a house, make sure you will stay put for at least five years and preferably longer. 10. If you’re a conservative investor inclined to buy bonds, consider making extra principal payments on your mortgage instead. 21 Simple Truths that Help Real People Make Real Money (see rest of review for the list)".

$ The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You'll Ever Need: The Way Smart Money Invests Today by Larry E. Swedroe (2004) is a nice updated description of asset allocation with index funds and pitfalls to avoid.

$ What Wall Street Doesn't Want You to Know: How You Can Build Real Wealth Investing in Index Funds by Larry E. Swedroe (2004) is a nice description of asset allocation with index funds and pitfalls to avoid.

$ The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio by William J. Bernstein (2002) is an attempt to make his previous works on asset allocation more accessible. He has a Web site http://efficientfrontier.com/.

$ Wise Investing Made Simple: Larry Swedroe's Tales to Enrich Your Future by Larry Swedroe (2007) discusses in a sports analogy way the common mistakes investors make in investing. Although useful, this book is really meant to accompany other books (by that author and others) to reinforce why they recommend simple index investing as 'winning the loser's game'.

$ Common Sense on Mutual Funds: Fully Updated 10th Anniversary Edition by John C. Bogle (2009) makes the very strong case for index investing and asset allocation. [From Amazon.com] "John C. Bogle shares his extensive insights on investing in mutual funds. Since the first edition of Common Sense on Mutual Funds was published in 1999, much has changed, and no one is more aware of this than mutual fund pioneer John Bogle. Now, in this completely updated Second Edition, Bogle returns to take another critical look at the mutual fund industry and help investors navigate their way through the staggering array of investment alternatives that are available to them. Written in a straightforward and accessible style, this reliable resource examines the fundamentals of mutual fund investing in today's turbulent market environment and offers timeless advice in building an investment portfolio. Along the way, Bogle shows you how simplicity and common sense invariably trump costly complexity, and how a low cost, broadly diversified portfolio is virtually assured of outperforming the vast majority of Wall Street professionals over the long-term. * Written by respected mutual fund industry legend John C. Bogle, * Discusses the timeless fundamentals of investing that apply in any type of market, * Reflects on the structural and regulatory changes in the mutual fund industry, * Other titles by Bogle: The Little Book of Common Sense Investing and Enough. Securing your financial future has never seemed more difficult, but you'll be a better investor for having read the Second Edition of Common Sense on Mutual Funds".

$ The Informed Investor: A Hype-Free Guide to Constructing a Sound Financial Portfolio by Frank Armstrong III (2002) summarizes the essentials of long-term investing using index-funds in a readable way. He has a Web site http://www.investorsolutions.com/ with monthly commentaries.

$ The Bogleheads' Guide to Retirement Planning by Taylor Larimore, Mel Lindauer, Richard Ferri, Laura F. Dogu (Authors), John C. Bogle (Foreword) (2009) [from Amazon.com product description] "Whatever your current financial situation, you must continue to strive for a viable retirement plan by finding the most effective ways to save, the best accounts to save in, and the right amount to save, as well as understanding how to insure against setbacks and handle the uncertainties of a shaky economy.... [Topics include:] * Explains the different types of savings accounts and retirement plans, * Offers insights on managing and funding your retirement accounts, * Details efficient withdrawal strategies that could help you maintain a comfortable retirement lifestyle, * Addresses essential estate planning and gifting issues...". They have a useful Web site http://www.bogleheads.org/ which has a very active blog. The Bogleheads group has set up a corrections/typos/discussions Wiki for this book that is constantly being updated. Some of the authors also wrote The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing (2005).

$ The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing by Taylor Larimore, Mel Lindauer, and Michael LeBoeuf (2006) is a easy to read primer on asset allocation and building a maintaining your own investment portfolio based on low cost index funds. The Bogleheads is named after John Bogle and is called the "Vanguard Diehards" on the http://morningstar.com/ discussion boards. They have a parallel web site http://www.bogleheads.org/ which is a very active blog. Some of the authors also wrote The Bogleheads' Guide to Retirement Planning (2009).

$ Straight Talk on Investing: What You Need to Know by Jack Brennan (2002) summarizes the essentials of investment decisions in a readable way.

$ You Can Do It!: The Boomer's Guide to a Great Retirement by Jonathan Pond (2007) summarizes the essentials of investing in a readable way.

$ Earn More (Sleep Better): The Index Fund Solution by Richard Evans and Burton Malkiel (1999) summarizes the essentials of index-fund investing in a readable way.

$# Expected Returns: An Investor's Guide to Harvesting Market Rewards by Antti Ilmanen (2011) is a very good advanced reference book many asset classes. [From Amazon.com] "Expected Returns is a one-stop reference that gives investors a comprehensive toolkit for harvesting market rewards from a wide range of investments. Written by an experienced portfolio manager, scholar, strategist, investment advisor and hedge fund trader, this book challenges investors to broaden their minds from a too-narrow asset class perspective and excessive focus on historical performance. Coverage includes major asset classes (stocks, bonds, alternatives), investment strategies (value, carry, momentum, volatility) and the effects of underlying risk factors (growth, inflation, illiquidity, tail risks). Judging expected returns requires balancing historical returns with both theoretical considerations and current market conditions. Expected Returns summarizes the state of knowledge on all of these topics, providing extensive empirical evidence, surveys of risk-based and behavioral theories, and practical insights."

$# Unveiling The Retirement Myth: Advanced Retirement Planning based on Market History by Jim Otar (2009) is a very interesting but somewhat controversial book about retirement planning that includes a lot of good material useful in portfolio withdrawal (distribution) phase planning - as well as the accumulation phase found it most retirement planning books. Definitely worth it to get some of his insights not normally talked about, but in one nice collection of related topics in one resource book. It has nice discussions of secular (long term) markets that contain shorter term cyclical markets, inflation, sequence of returns, asset allocation, expenses, rebalancing strategies, annual vs essential retirement budgets, withdrawal rates and sustainable withdrawal rates, annuities, and many other aspects of retirement investing. Much of the financial planning (both in savings and withdrawal phase) used these days has holes which he is happy to point out (e.g., use of Gaussian distribution based Monte Carlo or using fixed portfolio and fixed inflation returns forecasting has problems using past return history to predict the future). There are good reviews in the Bogleheads forum and in Amazon.com. As one of the Bogleheads reviewers points out, it is definitely a book written by an engineer - although that is actually a big plus (he later got CFP, CMT credentials and is a practicing financial planner in Canada, but addresses USA planning issues well). However, this 525 page book is not bed time reading or for those who want the "answer" in a short article or book (that simply does not exist). The "complete answer" does not exist because of unknown-unknowns, although some bounding can be estimated and this seems to be what he is doing. As in This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly by Carmen M. Reinhart, Kenneth Rogoff discuss in their outstanding history of many hundreds of bubbles, stuff happens. For do-it-yourselfers, the book covers a lot of details of planning areas usually left out of many other discussions on those areas. For those working with a financial planner, this book is very useful to suggest things to go over with them. Otar suggests that people not interested in the gory details in the book, just read the Introduction and Conclusion of each chapter which seems reasonable. Otar's web site is http://retirementoptimizer.com/ where you can download his trial software or buy the full version.

$# The Intelligent Asset Allocator: How to Build Your Portfolio to Maximize Returns and Minimize Risk by William Bernstein (2000) is an excellent detailed technical book on asset allocation and indexing. He has a Web site efficientfrontier.com that has an archive of very insightful commentaries.

$# Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment by David Swensen (2005) is a good way to look at asset allocation with indexing with some good insights into uncompensated risk of many popular fixed asset classes.

$# Pioneering Portfolio Management: An Unconventional Approach to Institutional Investment by David Swensen (2000) is an earlier book that documents his approach for managing endowment funds (he runs Yale's endowment fund).

$# Pioneering Portfolio Management: An Unconventional Approach to Institutional Investment, Fully Revised and Updated by David Swensen (2009) is a major revision of the 2000 version. Many of the ideas could be carried over to some extent in the asset allocation of a personal portfolio.

$# Mastering the Art of Asset Allocation - Comprehensive approaches to managing risk and optimizing returns by David Darst (2007). This goes into the nitty gritty of asset allocation for the dedicated investor.

$# Active Index Investing by Steven A. Shoenfeld (2004) is an excellent compendium of papers on indexing by the major proponents of the field.

$# Morningstar Guide to Mutual Funds: Five-Star Strategies for Success by Christine Benz (2005) discusses developing a personal portfolio of stock and bond funds, index funds, minimizing costs, style and risk. The Web site is http://www.morningstar.com/.

$# Questions Great Financial Advisors Ask... and Investors Need to Know by Alan Parisse and David Richman (2006) excellent book on how to deal with clients and how to get clients to help themselves by revealing how they feel about money issues which is critical before the advisor can help them.

$# From Wall Street to the Great Wall: How Investors Can Profit from China's Booming Economy by Burton G. Malkiel, Patricia A. Taylor, Jianping Mei, Rui Yang (2007) describes the history and the new role China plays in the global economy with expected 7% to 9% GDP growth/year - more than most of the rest of the world. How China and the rest of theworld invests in China, and how small investors can partake via the various types of investment vehicles available.

$# A Bull in China: Investing Profitably in the World's Greatest Market by Jim Rogers (2007)describes the Chinese economy and the related players from an investors perspective. He describes both the possibilites as well as the problems.

$# The ETF Book: All You Need to Know About Exchange-Traded Funds by Rick Ferri (2007) describes the history and types of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) available to investors and the advantages and disadvantages of using ETFs compared to open-ended mutual funds. This goes extensively into the workings of ETFs for those who are considering or use ETFs in their portfolio.

$ The Only Guide to a Winning Bond Strategy You'll Ever Need: The Way Smart Money Preserves Wealth Today by Larry Swedroe and Joseph Hempen (2006) is a nice summary of various bond fixed asset classes using individual and bond funds. Thou's book is more complete, but this has more information on constructing a bond portfolio and integrating it with the rest of your equity (stock) portfolio.

$# The Bond Book, Third Edition: Everything Investors Need to Know About Treasuries, Municipals, GNMAs, Corporates, Zeros, Bond Funds, Money Market Funds, and More by Annette Thau (2010) is a good reference book on fixed investments. [From Amazon.com] "The financial crisis of 2008 caused major disruptions to every sector of the bond market and left even the savviest investors confused about the safety of their investments. To serve these investors and anyone looking to explore opportunities in fixed-income investing, former bond analyst Annette Thau builds on the features and authority that made the first two editions bestsellers in the thoroughly revised, updated, and expanded third edition of The Bond Book. This is a one-stop resource for both seasoned bond investors looking for the latest information on the fixed-income market and equities investors planning to diversify their holdings. Writing in plain English, Thau presents cutting-edge strategies for making the best bond-investing decisions, while explaining how to assess risks and opportunities. She also includes up-to-date listings of online resources with bond prices and other information. Look to this all-in-one guide for information on such critical topics as: * Buying individual bonds or bond funds; * The ins and outs of open-end funds, closed-end funds, and exchangetraded funds (ETFs); * The new landscape for municipal bonds: the changed rating scales, the near demise of bond insurance, and Build America Bonds (BABs); * The safest bond funds; * Junk bonds (and emerging market bonds); * Buying Treasuries without paying a commission. From how bonds work to how to buy and sell them to what to expect from them, The Bond Book, third edition, is a must-read for individual investors and financial advisers who want to enhance the fixed-income allocation of their portfolios."

$ The Only Guide to Alternative Investments You'll Ever Need: The Good, the Flawed, the Bad, and the Ugly by Larry Swedroe and Jared Kizer (2008) [From Amazon.com] "In times of uncertainty, investors look for ways to protect their principal and still earn a good return. Financial advisers Larry Swedroe and Jared Kizer say the best approach is to add carefully chosen alternative investments to traditional stock and bond portfolios. In this, the third book in the popular The Only Guide Youll Ever Need series, the authors detail twenty alternative investments, explaining which to consider seriously and which to avoid entirely. They make specific recommendations about the best ways to access each investment, address tax and liquidity issues, and create an allocation and implementation strategy."

Note: many of the other books mentioned in these lists also touch on these sub topics.

$ The investor's dilemma: how mutual funds are betraying your trust and what to do about it by Louis Lowenstein [From Amazon.com] "Based on cutting-edge research by leading corporate critic Louis Lowenstein, The Investor’s Dilemma: How Mutual Funds Are Betraying Your Trust and What to Do About It reveals how highly overpaid fund sponsors really operate and walks you through the conflicts of interest found throughout the industry. Page by page, you’ll discover the real problems within the world of mutual funds and learn how to overcome them through a value-oriented approach to this market." Makes a very strong case that almost all fund companies are egregiously out for the fund management rather than the investors. He suggests the best alternatives are Graham and Dodd value funds with fund managers having a significant stake of their wealth in their own funds (that helps keeps down costs and turnover), or alternatively - low-cost index funds. Lowenstein is Professor Emeritus of Finance and Law, Columbia Law School. He was a member of SEC's Panel on Audit Effectiveness.

$ The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel (Revised Edition) by Benjamin Graham and Jason Zweig (2003). This edition of Graham's classic book is brought up to date by Zweig's excellent footnotes discussing it in the modern context.

$ The Little Book of Value Investing by Christopher Browne (2006) goes into what great value investors (Graham, Buffet, Dodge, Tweedy, etc.) do. Browne is with Tweedy Browne funds which like Warren Buffet has interesting yearly commentaries on their http://www.tweedybrown.com/ web site. Buffet’s are on http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html Web site.

$# Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings by Philip A. Fisher and Kenneth L. Fisher (2003) discusses P. A. Fisher's value investing philosophy.

# The Investor's Dilemma: How Mutual Funds Are Betraying Your Trust And What To Do About It by Louis Lowenstein (Author), Neil Barsky (Foreword) (2008) is another good book arguing for for value investing. (From Amazon.com) "Based on cutting-edge research by leading corporate critic Louis Lowenstein, The Investor’s Dilemma: How Mutual Funds Are Betraying Your Trust and What to Do About It reveals how highly overpaid fund sponsors really operate and walks you through the conflicts of interest found throughout the industry. Page by page, you’ll discover the real problems within the world of mutual funds and learn how to overcome them through a value-oriented approach to this market."

$ The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr (2010) [From Amazon.com] "Carr—author of The Big Switch (2007) and the much-discussed Atlantic Monthly story “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”—is an astute critic of the information technology revolution. Here he looks to neurological science to gauge the organic impact of computers, citing fascinating experiments that contrast the neural pathways built by reading books versus those forged by surfing the hypnotic Internet, where portals lead us on from one text, image, or video to another while we’re being bombarded by messages, alerts, and feeds. This glimmering realm of interruption and distraction impedes the sort of comprehension and retention “deep reading” engenders, Carr explains. And not only are we reconfiguring our brains, we are also forging a “new intellectual ethic,” an arresting observation Carr expands on while discussing Google’s gargantuan book digitization project. What are the consequences of new habits of mind that abandon sustained immersion and concentration for darting about, snagging bits of information? What is gained and what is lost? Carr’s fresh, lucid, and engaging assessment of our infatuation with the Web is provocative and revelatory." Also see the Atlantic 2008 article Is Google Making Us Stupid?.

$ Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It) by William Poundstone (2009) [From Amazon.com] "Poundstone (Gaming the Vote) dives into the latest psychological findings to investigate how and why prices are allocated. Beginning with the controversial lawsuit in which a jury awarded $2.9 million in damages to a woman who had spilled a scalding cup of McDonald's coffee on herself, the author presents a readable history of how we are subtly manipulated into paying more (or less) for goods and services—and the research that attempts to explain our baffling and irrational susceptibility to pricing. The idea of anchoring and adjustment—setting an arbitrary number to subconsciously drive higher or lower estimates—is just one of many research areas explained at length. While Poundstone's case studies are vivid, the abundance of theories and experiments might prove overwhelming for the casual reader. Nevertheless, the scope of the analysis—its attention to economic abstractions as well as real-world consequences—braids together theory and practice to leave an indelible impression on the reader. Grocery shopping will never seem so simple again when one realizes how much work goes into assigning a price to a box of cereal."

$ Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition by Michael J. Mauboussin (2009) [From Amazon.com] "Leaders in all fields-business, medicine, law, government-make crucial decisions every day. The harsh truth is that they mismanage many of those choices, even though they have the right intentions. These blunders take a huge toll on leaders, their organizations, and the people they serve. Why is it so hard to make sound decisions? We fall victim to simplified mental routines that prevent us from coping with the complex realities inherent in important judgment calls. Yet these cognitive errors are preventable. In Think Twice, Michael Mauboussin shows you how to recognize-and avoid-common mental missteps, including: -Misunderstanding cause-and-effect linkages -Aggregating micro-level behavior to predict macro-level behavior -Not considering enough alternative possibilities in making a decision -Relying too much on experts. Sharing vivid stories from business and beyond, Mauboussin offers powerful rules for avoiding each error. And he explains how to know when it's time to think twice-to question your reasoning and adopt decision-making strategies that are far more effective, even if they seem counterintuitive. Master the art of thinking twice, and you'll start spotting dangerous mental errors-in your own decisions and in those of others. Equipped with this awareness, you'll soon begin making sounder judgment calls that benefit (rather than hurt) your organization."

$ How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer (2009) [From Amazon.com] "Since Plato, philosophers have described the decision-making process as either rational or emotional: we carefully deliberate, or we blink and go with our gut. But as scientists break open the mind's black box with the latest tools of neuroscience, they are discovering that this is not how the mind works. Our best decisions are a finely tuned blend of both feeling and reason and the precise mix depends on the situation. When buying a house, for example, it's best to let our unconscious mull over the many variables. But when we're picking a stock, intuition often leads us astray. The trick is to determine when to use the different parts of the brain, and to do this, we need to think harder (and smarter) about how we think. Jonah Lehrer arms us with the tools we need, drawing on cutting-edge research as well as the real-world experiences of a wide range of deciders from airplane pilots and hedge fund investors to serial killers and poker players. Lehrer shows how people are taking advantage of the new science to make better television shows, win more football games, and improve military intelligence. His goal is to answer two questions that are of interest to just about anyone, from CEOs to firefighters: How does the human mind make decisions? And how can we make those decisions better?"

$ Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently by Gregory Berns (2009) [From Amazon.com] "Psychiatry professor Berns (Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment) describes an iconoclast as "a person who does something that others say can't be done." Though keeping his promise to reveal the "biological basis" for the ability to think outside the box, Berns keeps technical explanation to a minimum, instead using themes like perception, fear and networking to profile a number of famous free-thinkers. While the ordinary person perceives the world based on his past experience and "what other people say," the iconoclast is both willing and able to risk seeing things differently; in the case of glass sculptor Dale Chihuly, his creative breakthrough (departing from symmetry in his ice-sculptures) came after a car crash blinded him in one eye, literally changing his view of the world. The will to take risks is also paramount; Cardinals baseball coach Branch Rickey and his controversial hire Jackie Robinson, the first black man in the Majors, provide models of imagination and fearlessness. Berns also looks at iconoclasts like Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King Jr., Henry Ford, the Dixie Chicks, Warren Buffett and Picasso, relating in lucid terms the mindsets that set them apart.".

$ Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein (2008) [A few of the reviews from Amazon.com] 1) "How often do you read a book that is both important and amusing, both practical and deep? This gem of a book resents the best idea that has come out of behavioral economics. It is a must-read for anyone who wants to see both our minds and our society working better. It will improve your decisions and it will make the world a better place. -Daniel Kahneman, Princeton University, Nobel Laureate in Economics."; 2) "This book is terrific. It will change the way you think, not only about the world around you and some of its bigger problems, but also about yourself. -Michael Lewis, author of The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game and Liar's Poker."; 3) "I love this book. It is one of the few books I've read recently that fundamentally changes the way I think about the world. Just as surprising, it is fun to read, drawing on examples as far afield as urinals, 401(k) plans, organ donations, and marriage. Academics aren''t supposed to be able to write this well. -Steven Levitt, Alvin Baum Professor of Economics, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and co-author of Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything."

$ Mr. Market Miscalculates: The Bubble Years and Beyond by James Grant (2008) [From Amazon.com] Collected from speeches and editorials by Grant, the editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, these essays are remarkable for their prescience: two years before subprime mortgages collapsed, the author described them as not one borrower left behind and when other analysts were worried about the effect of a Fed interest rate increase, he foresaw that the risk to house prices lies not with interest rates but with lending standards. Other chapters attack bubbles in stocks and the dollar with erudition and wit (Economics, mistaking itself for physics, is wont to turn up its nose at history, but the past has much to teach; as dress on Wall Street has become more casual, so have the monetary arrangements... the gold standard and swallowtail coats have given way to Greenspan and open-neck shirts). It's hard to imagine reading any other investment newsletter even a week after publication. Grant's is the exception; it paints on a larger canvas and is infused with the author's generous spirit and rich sense of humor."

$ The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics by Michael Shermer (2007) [from Amazon] "Shermer (The Science of Good and Evil), columnist for Scientific American and publisher of Skeptic magazine, provides an in-depth examination of evolutionary economics. Using fascinating examples—from monkeys that balk at unfair distribution of rewards after completing a task to humans who feel cheated when offered $10 of free money if a partner is given $90—Shermer explores the evolutionary roots of our sense of fairness and justice, and shows how this rationale extends to the market. Drawing upon his expertise as a scientist and the works of noted economists, Shermer argues convincingly that human beings are not exclusively self-centered, the market itself is moral, and modern economies are founded on our virtuous nature. He explores how we mind our money, the value of virtue, why money can't buy happiness and whether we are really free to make choices. Though dense in places, this book offers much insight into human behavior and rationales regarding money and fairness and will be of interest to serious readers of science or business." .

$ Why Smart People Make Dumb Money Mistakes by Gary Belsky and Thomas Gilovich (2000) is a good entry-level book on behavioral finance. People are wired in non-intuitive ways that cause us to make decisions that are out of whack with what they rationally "should" do. Knowing what those flaws are, may help in consciously trying to avoid them when investing.

$ Your Money and Your Brain: How the New Science of Neuroeconomics Can Help Make You Rich by Jason Zweig (2007) is a fascinating different financial type of book about investing and risk based on a huge amount of research done on neuroeconomics. Another, subtitle might be to know thyself (or at least what traps we still fall into as mammals recently removed from the necessity of using primative survival skills, and what we might possibly do something about).

$ Going Broke: Why Americans Can't Hold On To Their Money by Stuart Vyse (2008) (from Amazon.com review by Howard Rachlin, PhD, Psych. Dept, SUNY Stony Brook) "In this lucidly-written and very timely book, Vyse has brought recent empirical research by psychologists and economists to bear on the question of why so many people are currently getting themselves into unmanageable debt. Vyse makes astute suggestions as to what we can do individually and collectively to reverse this frightening situation. I highly recommend the book to anyone who is currently in such straits or who is in danger of getting into them -- and, as Vyse makes clear, that could be any of us."

$ The Myth of Multitasking: How "Doing It All" Gets Nothing Done by Dave Crenshaw (2008) Although not strictly a behaviorial economics book, it deals with an interesting side issue of multi-tasking and how people fool themselves into thinking they are doing more than they really are. He shows that when we think we are really doing parallel processing, we are really doing what he calls "switchtasking" both active and passive. Active switchtasking has a mental time cost that takes away from the time actually used to get things done.

Note: many of the other books mentioned in these lists also touch on these sub topics.

$ Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius Sylvia Nassar (2011) [Amazon.com] "In a sweeping narrative, the author of the megabestseller A Beautiful Mind takes us on a journey through modern history with the men and women who changed the lives of every single person on the planet. It’s the epic story of the making of modern economics, and of how economics rescued mankind from squalor and deprivation by placing its material fate in its own hands rather than in Fate. Nasar’s account begins with Charles Dickens and Henry Mayhew observing and publishing the condition of the poor majority in mid-nineteenth-century London, the richest and most glittering place in the world. This was a new pursuit. She describes the often heroic efforts of Marx, Engels, Alfred Marshall, Beatrice and Sydney Webb, and the American Irving Fisher to put those insights into action—with revolutionary consequences for the world. From the great John Maynard Keynes to Schumpeter, Hayek, Keynes’s disciple Joan Robinson, the influential American economists Paul Samuelson and Milton Freedman, and India’s Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen, she shows how the insights of these activist thinkers transformed the world—from one city, London, to the developed nations in Europe and America, and now to the entire planet. In Nasar’s dramatic narrative of these discoverers we witness men and women responding to personal crises, world wars, revolutions, economic upheavals, and each other’s ideas to turn back Malthus and transform the dismal science into a triumph over mankind’s hitherto age-old destiny of misery and early death. This idea, unimaginable less than 200 years ago, is a story of trial and error, but ultimately transcendent, as it is rendered here in a stunning and moving narrative."

$ Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics Nicholas Wapshott (2011) [Amazon.com] "Can government fix a broken economy? Two great economists disagreed eighty years ago, and their debate dominates politics to this day. As the stock market crash of 1929 plunged the world into turmoil, two men emerged with competing claims on how to restore balance to economies gone awry. John Maynard Keynes, the mercurial Cambridge economist, believed that government had a duty to spend when others would not. He met his opposite in a little-known Austrian economics professor, Freidrich Hayek, who considered attempts to intervene both pointless and potentially dangerous. The battle lines thus drawn, Keynesian economics would dominate for decades and coincide with an era of unprecedented prosperity, but conservative economists and political leaders would eventually embrace and execute Hayek's contrary vision."

$ The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good Robert H. Frank(2011) [Amazon.com] "Who was the greater economist--Adam Smith or Charles Darwin? The question seems absurd. Darwin, after all, was a naturalist, not an economist. But Robert Frank, New York Times economics columnist and best-selling author of The Economic Naturalist, predicts that within the next century Darwin will unseat Smith as the intellectual founder of economics. The reason, Frank argues, is that Darwin's understanding of competition describes economic reality far more accurately than Smith's. And the consequences of this fact are profound. Indeed, the failure to recognize that we live in Darwin's world rather than Smith's is putting us all at risk by preventing us from seeing that competition alone will not solve our problems. ..."

$ The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It Scott Patterson (2011) [Amazon.com] "In a fast-moving narrative, Wall Street Journal reporter Patterson explores the coterie of mathematicians behind the Wall Street crash of 2008. The story's stars are "an unusual breed of investors" called quants, who "used brain-twisting math and super-powered computers to pluck billions in fleeting dollars out of the market." Following the first quant, Beat the Market author Ed Thorp, from his graduate school days in 1955, and introducing others like Peter Muller and Ken Griffin as they established funds at major investment firms, Patterson spins a fascinating story of riches amassed for a few and, inevitably, lost for many: a collapsing hedge fund, "imploding under the weight of toxic subprime assets," took down the system "like a massive avalanche started by a single loose boulder." Though his narrative is interesting and easy to follow, Patterson's explanations of investment terms are not for novices; a glossary would have helped. As he puts the excesses and failures of Wall Street into perspective, however, Patterson also offers evidence that Wall Street hasn't learned its lesson: as of spring 2009, "several banks reported stronger earnings numbers... in part due to clever accounting tricks... and other potentially dangerous quant gadgets being forged in the dark smithies of Wall Street."

$ The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better Tyler Cowen (2011) [Amazon.com] "Tyler Cowen's The Great Stagnation, the eSpecial heard round the world that ignited a firestorm of debate and redefined the nature of our economic malaise, is now-at last-a book. America has been through the biggest financial crisis since the great Depression, unemployment numbers are frightening, media wages have been flat since the 1970s, and it is common to expect that things will get worse before they get better. Certainly, the multidecade stagnation is not yet over. How will we get out of this mess? One political party tries to increase government spending even when we have no good plan for paying for ballooning programs like Medicare and Social Security. The other party seems to think tax cuts will raise revenue and has a record of creating bigger fiscal disasters that the first. Where does this madness come from? As Cowen argues, our economy has enjoyed low-hanging fruit since the seventeenth century: free land, immigrant labor, and powerful new technologies. But during the last forty years, the low-hanging fruit started disappearing, and we started pretending it was still there. We have failed to recognize that we are at a technological plateau. The fruit trees are barer than we want to believe. That's it. That is what has gone wrong and that is why our politics is crazy. Cowen reveals the underlying causes of our past prosperity and how we will generate it again. This is a passionate call for a new respect of scientific innovations that benefit not only the powerful elites, but humanity as a whole."

$ The Next Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World by Michael Spence (2011) [Amazon.com] "With the British Industrial Revolution, part of the world’s population started to experience extraordinary economic growth—leading to enormous gaps in wealth and living standards between the industrialized West and the rest of the world. This pattern of divergence reversed after World War II, and now we are midway through a century of high and accelerating growth in the developing world and a new convergence with the advanced countries—a trend that is set to reshape the world. Michael Spence, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, explains what happened to cause this dramatic shift in the prospects of the five billion people who live in developing countries. The growth rates are extraordinary, and continuing them presents unprecedented challenges in governance, international coordination, and ecological sustainability. The implications for those living in the advanced countries are great but little understood. Spence clearly and boldly describes what’s at stake for all of us as he looks ahead to how the global economy will develop over the next fifty years. The Next Convergence is certain to spark a heated debate how best to move forward in the post-crisis period and reset the balance between national and international economic interests, and short-term fixes and long-term sustainability."

$ Why the West Rules--for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future by (Ian Morris (2011) [Amazon.com] "Sometime around 1750, English entrepreneurs unleashed the astounding energies of steam and coal, and the world was forever changed. The emergence of factories, railroads, and gunboats propelled the West's rise to power in the nineteenth century, and the development of computers and nuclear weapons in the twentieth century secured its global supremacy. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, many worry that the emerging economic power of China and India spells the end of the West as a superpower. In order to understand this possibility, we need to look back in time. Why has the West dominated the globe for the past two hundred years, and will its power last? Describing the patterns of human history, the archaeologist and historian Ian Morris offers surprising new answers to both questions. It is not, he reveals, differences of race or culture, or even the strivings of great individuals, that explain Western dominance. It is the effects of geography on the everyday efforts of ordinary people as they deal with crises of resources, disease, migration, and climate. As geography and human ingenuity continue to interact, the world will change in astonishing ways, transforming Western rule in the process. Deeply researched and brilliantly argued, Why the West Rules--for Now spans fifty thousand years of history and offers fresh insights on nearly every page. The book brings together the latest findings across disciplines--from ancient history to neuroscience--not only to explain why the West came to rule the world but also to predict what the future will bring in the next hundred years."

$ 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown by Simon Johnson, James Kwak (2010) [Amazon.com] "Though this blistering book identifies many causes of the recent financial crisis, from housing policy to minimum capital requirements for banks, the authors lay ultimate blame on a dominant deregulatory ideology and Wall Street's corresponding political influence. Johnson, professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and Kwak, a former consultant for McKinsey, follow American finance's rocky road from the debate between Jefferson and Hamilton over the first Bank of the United States through frequent friction between Big Finance and democracy to the Obama administration's responses to the crises. The authors take a highly critical stance toward recent palliative measures, arguing that nationalization of the banks would have been preferable to the bailouts, which have allowed the banks to further consolidate power and resources. Given the swelling size of the six megabanks, the authors make a persuasive case that the financial system cannot be secure until those banks that are too big to fail are somehow broken up. This intelligent, nuanced book might be too technical for general-interest readers, but it synthesizes a significant amount of research while advancing a coherent and compelling point of view."

$ The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis (2010) [From Amazon.com] "Although Lewis is perhaps best known for his sports-related nonfiction (including The Blind Side), his first book was the autobiographical Liar's Poker, in which he chronicled his disillusionment as a young gun on Wall Street in the greed is good 1980s. He returns to his financial roots to excavate the crisis of 2007–2008, employing his trademark technique of casting a microcosmic lens on the personal histories of several Wall Street outsiders who were betting against the grain—to shed light on the macrocosmic tale of greed and fear. Although Lewis reads the book's introduction, narration duties are assumed by Jesse Boggs, a veteran narrator of business titles (including Lewis's own 2008 book Panic!). Boggs's rich baritone is well suited to the task and trips lightly through a maze of financial jargon (CDOs, derivatives, mid-prime lending) and a dizzying cast of characters. Lewis returns on the final disc for a 10-minute interview about the crisis's aftermath, including a savvy assessment of the wisdom of the financial bailout and where-are-they-now updates on the book's various heroes and villains."

$ The Moral Underground: How Ordinary Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy by Lisa Dodson (2009) [From Amazon.com] "In this fascinating exploration of economic civil disobedience, Dodson (Don't Call Us Out by Name) introduces readers to teachers, supervisors, health-care professionals and managers who bend the rules—and even break the law—to support those in need. Dodson shares stories of individuals like Linda, a health-care supervisor who has, against hospital policy, driven an employee to court on work time and allows her low-wage employees to manipulate the schedule so they can attend to child-care needs. The author interviews Cora, a restaurant manager, who came up with a double talk system, in which she keeps two sets of time sheets so that workers can attend to family issues and who says, helping women meet their kids or do what they have to do is more important than her chain restaurant's rules. Dodson's study is gripping and her argument is persuasive: we should not have to put compassionate Americans in a position where they have to choose between following rules and helping those who are trying to help themselves."

$ Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System---and Themselves by Andrew Ross Sorkin (2009) [From Amazon.com] "The author has done remarkable research and has composed it into a highly readable account of the 2008 Financial Panic. What surprised me was the extent to which the likes Paulson, Geithner, people at Goldman Sachs knew in early Spring that the dominoes had lined up and yet in a sense couldn't stop them from toppling. Conventional wisdom until now has been that Paulson & Bernanke were unprepared & totally blindsided by the sudden loss of confidence in September. Sorkin writes this was untrue, he has furnished a memo written by Neel Kashkari in early APRIL outlining a last-ditch "Break the glass" plan that later came out to be.....TARP!. He also gives you an hour-by-hour account of that fateful week in Sept by telling the story of all the players. What would amaze you, is the sheer number of merger combinations that were attempted but didn't succeed. Like JP Morgan buying Morgan Stanley for $1 a share, or Goldman merging with Citi, Paulson trying to entice Lewis to buy Lehman. Its fascinating as to how little time Geithner & Co. had to draw up a plan to rescue AIG. It will leave you somewhat sympathetic to their decision to pay its counterparties 100 cents on the dollar. Which seems like a big mistake when considered in retrospect. As you might expect, AIG top management & FP division come across as clueless & insanely irresponsible. Sorkin's tone throughout the book is objective and nuanced. He doesn't flatter anyone in particular. He lays out sufficient details and lets you form an impression of each of the players."

$ Googled: The End of the World As We Know It by Ken Auletta (2009) [From Amazon.com] "There are companies that create waves and those that ride or are drowned by them. As only he can, bestselling author Ken Auletta takes readers for a ride on the Google wave, telling the story of how it formed and crashed into traditional media businesses-from newspapers to books, to television, to movies, to telephones, to advertising, to Microsoft. With unprecedented access to Google's founders and executives, as well as to those in media who are struggling to keep their heads above water, Auletta reveals how the industry is being disrupted and redefined. Using Google as a stand-in for the digital revolution, Auletta takes readers inside Google's closed-door meetings and paints portraits of Google's notoriously private founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as well as those who work with-and against-them. In his narrative, Auletta provides the fullest account ever told of Google's rise, shares the "secret sauce" of Google's success, and shows why the worlds of "new" and "old" media often communicate as if residents of different planets. Google engineers start from an assumption that the old ways of doing things can be improved and made more efficient, an approach that has yielded remarkable results- Google will generate about $20 billion in advertising revenues this year, or more than the combined prime-time ad revenues of CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX. And with its ownership of YouTube and its mobile phone and other initiatives, Google CEO Eric Schmidt tells Auletta his company is poised to become the world's first $100 billion media company. Yet there are many obstacles that threaten Google's future, and opposition from media companies and government regulators may be the least of these. Google faces internal threats, from its burgeoning size to losing focus to hubris. In coming years, Google's faith in mathematical formulas and in slide rule logic will be tested, just as it has been on Wall Street. Distilling the knowledge accrued from a career of covering the media, Auletta will offer insights into what we know, and don't know, about what the future holds for the imperiled industry".

$ Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson (2009) [from Amazon.com] "Starred Review. In the digital marketplace, the most effective price is no price at all, argues Anderson (The Long Tail). He illustrates how savvy businesses are raking it in with indirect routes from product to revenue with such models as cross-subsidies (giving away a DVR to sell cable service) and freemiums (offering Flickr for free while selling the superior FlickrPro to serious users). New media models have allowed successes like Obama's campaign billboards on Xbox Live, Webkinz dolls and Radiohead's name-your-own-price experiment with its latest album. A generational and global shift is at play—those below 30 won't pay for information, knowing it will be available somewhere for free, and in China, piracy accounts for about 95% of music consumption—to the delight of artists and labels, who profit off free publicity through concerts and merchandising. Anderson provides a thorough overview of the history of pricing and commerce, the mental transaction costs that differentiate zero and any other price into two entirely different markets, the psychology of digital piracy and the open-source war between Microsoft and Linux. As in Anderson's previous book, the thought-provoking material is matched by a delivery that is nothing short of scintillating." You can download the abridged 'Free' audio book at www.hyperionbooks.com/free.

$ The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Letting Go of the Old Ways of Thinking to Unleash a New Prosperity by Matt Miller (2009). (Review from Amazon.com) "If Fortune columnist Miller's eerily prophetic book had come out earlier, it could have served as a wakeup call for Wall Street leaders and Washington, D.C. lawmakers before the failure of several venerable financial institutions required government bailouts. The author's prescient observations make a persuasive case for how an American attitude of entitlement and outdated beliefs about government, education, taxes, business, corporate excess and health care threaten our national well-being and our position as a world leader. The author denounces such cherished and longstanding beliefs as Your Company Should Take Care of You, and The Kids Will Earn More than We Do, and examines their historical provenances—for example, he traces the adoption of pensions to the early 20th century, when employers like Proctor and Gamble and G.E. acted as feudal lords offering benefits to recruit and retain employees—strategies that are now strangling these same corporations at the expense of global competitiveness. Rather than a petulant indictment of our political and economic myopia, this book offers a fair-handed critique." Interestingly, the book is reviewed positively from the left and right (US Chamber of Commerce). See www.mattmilleronline.com/tyranny.php for more on the book as well as the Introduction on-line.

$ The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy by David M. Smick (2008). (Review from Amazon.com) "With this illuminating book, Smick revisits Thomas Friedman's description of the "flat" world produced by globalization, arguing instead that the uncertainty produced by globalized financial markets has created a world that is curved, where events and their consequences are unpredictable. Smick begins with a puzzle: why did the subprime mortgage crisis, an event that directly impacted a relatively small piece of the global market, have such a catastrophic impact on the world market as a whole? From there, the author turns to topics as complex and varied as the potential 21st Century Chinese financial bubble and the policy dilemmas currently facing the Fed. Throughout the book, the author returns to the argument that political trends are increasingly at odds with the forces driving the globalized world economy. Smick brings expertise and lucidity to many difficult subjects, and while his book's appeal will likely be limited to those with some background in the field, it will undoubtedly stir interest and debate amongst investors, policymakers and strategists alike." Smick is also editor of The International Economy magazine at www.international-economy.com where many articles written since 2002 were influential in his views in this book.

$ The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too by James K. Galbraith (2008) [from Amazon.com description] "The cult of the free market has dominated economic policy-talk since the Reagan revolution of nearly thirty years ago. Tax cuts and small government, monetarism, balanced budgets, deregulation, and free trade are the core elements of this dogma, a dogma so successful that even many liberals accept it. But a funny thing happened on the bridge to the twenty-first century. While liberals continue to bow before the free-market altar, conservatives in the style of George W. Bush have abandoned it altogether. That is why principled conservatives -- the Reagan true believers -- long ago abandoned Bush. Enter James K. Galbraith, the iconoclastic economist. In this riveting book, Galbraith first dissects the stale remains of Reaganism and shows how Bush and company had no choice except to dump them into the trash. He then explores the true nature of the Bush regime: a 'corporate republic,' bringing the methods and mentality of big business to public life; a coalition of lobbies, doing the bidding of clients in the oil, mining, military, pharmaceutical, agribusiness, insurance, and media industries; and a predator state, intent not on reducing government but rather on diverting public cash into private hands. In plain English, the Republican Party has been hijacked by political leaders who long since stopped caring if reality conformed to their message. Galbraith follows with an impertinent question: if conservatives no longer take free markets seriously, why should liberals? Why keep liberal thought in the straitjacket of pay-as-you-go, of assigning inflation control to the Federal Reserve, of attempting to 'make markets work'? Why not build a new economic policy based on what is really happening in this country? The real economy is not a free-market economy. It is a complex combination of private and public institutions, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, higher education, the housing finance system, and a vast federal research establishment. The real problems and challenges -- inequality, climate change, the infrastructure deficit, the subprime crisis, and the future of the dollar -- are problems that cannot be solved by incantations about the market. They will be solved only with planning, with standards and other policies that transcend and even transform markets. A timely, provocative work whose message will endure beyond this election season, The Predator State will appeal to the broad audience of thoughtful Americans who wish to understand the forces at work in our economy and culture and who seek to live in a nation that is both prosperous and progressive."

$ The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson (2008) discusses the history of money and finance from 1,000 B.C. through the bubbles and crises of today with insights into some of the mechanisms and human psychologies that drive them.

$ Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution - and How It Can Renew America Thomas L. Friedman (2008) (review from Amazon.com) "Thomas L. Friedman’s phenomenal number-one bestseller The World Is Flat has helped millions of readers to see the world in a new way. In his brilliant, essential new book, Friedman takes a fresh and provocative look at two of the biggest challenges we face today: America’s surprising loss of focus and national purpose since 9/11; and the global environmental crisis, which is affecting everything from food to fuel to forests. In this groundbreaking account of where we stand now, he shows us how the solutions to these two big problems are linked--how we can restore the world and revive America at the same time. Friedman explains how global warming, rapidly growing populations, and the astonishing expansion of the world’s middle class through globalization have produced a planet that is “hot, flat, and crowded.” Already the earth is being affected in ways that threaten to make it dangerously unstable. In just a few years, it will be too late to fix things--unless the United States steps up now and takes the lead in a worldwide effort to replace our wasteful, inefficient energy practices with a strategy for clean energy, energy efficiency, and conservation that Friedman calls Code Green. ..."

$ The Post-American World Fareed Zakaria (2008) (review from Amazon.com) "When a book proclaims that it is not about the decline of America but the rise of everyone else, readers might expect another diatribe about our dismal post-9/11 world. They are in for a pleasant surprise as Newsweek editor and popular pundit Zakaria (The Future of Freedom) delivers a stimulating, largely optimistic forecast of where the 21st century is heading. We are living in a peaceful era, he maintains; world violence peaked around 1990 and has plummeted to a record low. Burgeoning prosperity has spread to the developing world, raising standards of living in Brazil, India, China and Indonesia. Twenty years ago China discarded Soviet economics but not its politics, leading to a wildly effective, top-down, scorched-earth boom. Its political antithesis, India, also prospers while remaining a chaotic, inefficient democracy, as Indian elected officials are (generally) loathe to use the brutally efficient tactics that are the staple of Chinese governance. Paradoxically, India's greatest asset is its relative stability in the region; its officials take an unruly population for granted, while dissent produces paranoia in Chinese leaders. Zakaria predicts that despite its record of recent blunders at home and abroad, America will stay strong, buoyed by a stellar educational system and the influx of young immigrants, who give the U.S. a more youthful demographic than Europe and much of Asia whose workers support an increasing population of unproductive elderly. A lucid, thought-provoking appraisal of world affairs, this book will engage readers on both sides of the political spectrum."

$ A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World by William J. Bernstein (2008) "Adam Smith wrote that man has an intrinsic “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.” But how did trade evolve to the point where we don’t think twice about biting into an apple from the other side of the world? In this sweeping narrative history of world trade, William J. Bernstein tells the extraordinary story of global commerce from its prehistoric origins to the myriad controversies surrounding it today. He transports readers from ancient sailing ships that brought the silk trade from China to Rome in the second century to the rise and fall of the Portuguese monopoly in spices in the sixteenth; from the American trade battles of the early twentieth century to the modern era of televisions from Taiwan, lettuce from Mexico, and T-shirts from China. Lively, authoritative, and astonishing in scope, A Splendid Exchange is a riveting narrative that views trade and globalization not in political terms, but rather as an evolutionary process as old as war and religion--a historical constant--that will continue to foster the growth of intellectual capital, shrink the world, and propel the trajectory of the human species. " [from Amazon]

$ The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created by William J. Bernstein (2004) &[from Amazon] "a vital, living text-a cogent, timely journey through the economic history of the modern world. He identifies institutions ("the framework within which human beings think, interact and carry on business") as the engines of prosperity. Boiled down to four (property rights, the scientific method, capital markets and communications), these institutions come from ideas and practices that bubbled forth over the course of hundreds of years.&"

$ Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power by John Steele Gordon (2005) a financial historian. [from Amazon] "The word 'epic' in the subtitle is a tip-off that instead of a critical history of the American economy, this book is a celebration of it. Nothing wrong with that, especially when the tale's told breezily and accurately. In fact, Gordon (The Scarlet Woman of Wall Street) notes the many stumbles and the frequent foolishness and corruption that attended the nation's rise as an economic powerhouse."

$ The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein (2007) [from Amazon.com by Kim Hughes] 'Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine advances a truly unnerving argument: historically, while people were reeling from natural disasters, wars and economic upheavals, savvy politicians and industry leaders nefariously implemented policies that would never have passed during less muddled times. As Klein demonstrates, this reprehensible game of bait-and-switch isn't just some relic from the bad old days. It's alive and well in contemporary society, and coming soon to a disaster area near you. "At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq" civil war, a new law is unveiled that will allow Shell and BP to claim the country's vast oil reserves… Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly outsources the running of the "War on Terror" to Halliburton and Blackwater… After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts… New Orleans residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be re-opened." Klein not only kicks butt, she names names, notably economist Milton Friedman and his radical Chicago School of the 1950s and 60s which she notes "produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today." Stand up and take a bow, Donald Rumsfeld. There's little doubt Klein's book--which arrived to enormous attention and fanfare thanks to her previous missive, the best-selling No Logo, will stir the ire of the right and corporate America. It's also true that Klein's assertions are coherent, comprehensively researched and footnoted, and she makes a very credible case. Even if the world isn't going to hell in a hand-basket just yet, it's nice to know a sharp customer like Klein is bearing witness to the backroom machinations of government and industry in times of turmoil."

$ Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage by Kenneth S. Deffeyes (2001) makes the unequivocal case for our having reached peak oil extraction (first predicted by Hubbert) and the subsequent problems and possible decline of economic dependence on non-renewable oil. There are many other books since then on the economic consequences and some solutions to peak oil (see http://www.hubbertpeak.com/).

$ Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond (2005) discusses various examples of human economic and social collapse and even extinction of civilizations over many thousands of years. [from Amazon] "He explores patterns of population growth, overfarming, overgrazing and overhunting, often abetted by drought, cold, rigid social mores and warfare, that lead inexorably to vicious circles of deforestation, erosion and starvation prompted by the disappearance of plant and animal food sources. Extending his treatment to contemporary environmental trouble spots, from Montana to China to Australia, he finds today's global, technologically advanced civilization very far from solving the problems that plagued primitive, isolated communities in the remote past."

$ Making Globalization Work by Joseph E. Stiglitz (2006) [from Amazon] "focuses on policies that truly work, offering fresh new thinking about the questions that shape the globalization debate, including a plan to restructure a global financial system made unstable by America's debt, ideas for how countries can grow without degrading the environment, a framework for free and fair global trade, and much more. Throughout, Stiglitz reveals that economic globalization continues to outpace both the political structures and the moral sensitivity required to ensure a just and sustainable world. And he makes plain the real work that all nations must undertake to realize that goal."

$ The Pro-Growth Progressive: An Economic Strategy for Shared Prosperity by Gene Sperling (2005) discusses how fairer pro-growth corrections to the inevitable and valuable globalization policies will keep the economy going and minimize many of the short-term problems occuring with particular industrices (i.e., offshoring, job stress, Social Security, etc).

$ Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life by Robert Reich (2007) [From Amazon.com]"From Publishers Weekly. In this compelling and important analysis of the triumph of capitalism and the decline of democracy, former labor secretary Reich urges us to rebalance the roles of business and government. Power, he writes, has shifted away from us in our capacities as citizens and toward us as consumers and investors. While praising the spread of global capitalism, he laments that supercapitalism has brought with it alienation from politics and community. The solution: to separate capitalism from democracy, and guard the border between them. Plainspoken and forceful, if somewhat repetitious, the book urges new and strengthened laws and regulations to restore authority to the citizens in us. Reich's proposals are anything but knee-jerk liberal: he calls for abolishing the corporate income tax and labels the corporate social responsibility movement distracting and even counterproductive. As in 2004's Reason, Reich exhibits perhaps too much confidence in Americans' ability to think and act in their own best interests. But he refuses to shift blame for corporations' dominance to the usual suspects, instead pointing a finger at consumers like you and me who want better deals, and from investors like us who want better returns, he writes. Provocatively argued, this book could help begin a necessary national conversation. (Sept. 6) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved." His interview on NPR may be heard at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14321590. His web site is http://www.robertreich.org/

$ Oil on the Brain: Adventures from the Pump to the Pipeline by by Lisa Margonelli (2007) (Amazon) "From Publishers Weekly. In the last few years, just about everyone has had "oil on the brain" at some point, as record gas prices and a disastrous war have called our dependency into question. But though the U.S. burns 10,000 gallons of gasoline a second, few of us know how oil is created and drilled, how gas stations compete or what actually goes on in a refinery—let alone what happens in the mysterious Strategic Petroleum Reserve, where the U.S. government stores roughly 700 million barrels of oil in underground salt caverns on the Gulf Coast of Texas. Margonelli answers these questions and more, before examining some of the key patches in the oil industry's geopolitical quilt: source countries like Chad, where promises of real local growth fall hopelessly short, or China, which, "by 2025, perhaps, will import as much crude oil as the U.S. does now." Writing in a witty, first-person voice, Margonelli criticizes corruption in places like Nigeria, while expressing her 'love of hydrocarbons' for the unlikeliness of their formation and the ingenuity required to extricate them. This is an original, open-minded look at a subject about which everyone has an opinion".

$ Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future by Jeff Goodell (2007) (Amazon) "From Publishers Weekly. After a generation out of the spotlight, coal has reasserted its centrality: the United States 'burn[s] more than a billion tons' per year, and since 9/11 and the Iraq war, independence from foreign oil has become positively patriotic. Rolling Stone contributing editor Goodell's last book, the bestselling Our Story, was about a mine accident, which clearly made a deep impression on him. Our reliance on coal—the unspoken foundation of our "information" economy—has, Goodell says, led to an "empire of denial" that blocks us from the investments necessary to find alternative energy sources that could eventually save us from fossil fuel. Goodell's description of the mining-related deaths, the widespread health consequences of burning coal and the impact on our planet's increasingly fragile ecosystem make for compelling reading, but such commonplace facts are not what lift this book out of the ordinary. That distinction belongs to Goodell's fieldwork, which takes him to Atlanta, West Virginia, Wyoming, China and beyond—though he also has a fine grasp of the less tangible niceties of the industry. Goodell understands how mines, corporate boardrooms, commodity markets and legislative chambers interrelate to induce a national inertia. Goodell has a talent for pithy argument—and the book fairly crackles with informed conviction".

$ Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises by Charles P. Kindleberger, Robert Aliber, Robert Solow (2005) [From Amazon.com] "Manias, Panics, and Crashes, Fifth Edition is an engaging and entertaining account of the way that mismanagement of money and credit has led to financial explosions over the centuries. Covering such topics as the history and anatomy of crises, speculative manias, and the lender of last resort, this book puts the turbulence of the financial world in perspective. The updated fifth edition expands upon each chapter, and includes two new chapters focusing on significant financial crises of the last fifteen years."

$ POP! Why Bubbles are Great For the Economy by Daniel Gross (2007) suggests that financial bubbles encourages creative destruction that can bring on an even greater wave of economic prosperity.

$ Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams (2007) discusses new economic models of collaboration in a global market.

$ Open Business Models: How to thrive in the New Innovation Landscape by Henry Chesbrough (2006) discusses new open business models in the new global marketplace.

$ The Battle for Social Security: From FDR's Vision to Bush's Gamble by Nancy Altman (2005) tells the story of the creation and modification of Social Security over the years and the current political issues. She also proposes a a reasonable cost-effective solution to strengthening it without desstroying it through private accounts.

$ Optimizing Luck: What the Passion to Succeed in Space Can Teach Business Leaders on Earth by Thomas Meylan, Terry Teays (2007) describes what worked at a very successful project at NASA using collaborative work methods and suggests the key factors that could be used in other projects.

$ Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell (2008) [From Amazon.com] "Now that he's gotten us talking about the viral life of ideas and the power of gut reactions, Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the 'self-made man,' he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: 'they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.'"

$ A Second Opinion: Rescuing America's Health Care by Arnold Relman, M.D. (2007) describes the history of the current mess that the U.S. health care system is because of the shift of patient driven to an increasingly unsustainable profit-driven commercialization of health insurers, pharmaceutical industry, and doctor owned private hospitals. Dr. Relman, brings extensive experience from medical school practice, Nat. Acad. Sci. Institute of Medicine, editor of JAMA, and more. He proposes a plan for universal coverage serving patients over profit.

$ The Secret History of the War On Cancer by Devra Davis (2007) [From Amazon.com description] "From the National Book Award finalist, author of When Smoke Ran Like Water, a searing, haunting and deeply personal account of the War on Cancer. The War on Cancer set out to find, treat, and cure a disease. Left untouched were many of the things known to cause cancer, including tobacco, the workplace, radiation, or the global environment. Proof of how the world in which we live and work affects whether we get cancer was either overlooked or suppressed. This has been no accident. The War on Cancer was run by leaders of industries that made cancer-causing products, and sometimes also profited from drugs and technologies for finding and treating the disease. Filled with compelling personalities and never-before-revealed information, The Secret History of the War on Cancer shows how we began fighting the wrong war, with the wrong weapons, against the wrong enemies--a legacy that persists to this day. This is the gripping story of a major public health effort diverted and distorted for private gain. A portion of the profits from this book will go to support research on cancer prevention. Devra Davis, Ph.D., M.P.H., is the Director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and Professor of Epidemiology, Graduate School of Public Health. She was appointed by President Clinton to the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board in 1994 and also served as Scholar in Residence at the National Academy of Science."

$ The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom by Yochai Benkler (2007) [From Amazon.com description] "In this thick academic book, Yale law professor Benkler offers a comprehensive catalog of flashpoints in the conflict between old and new information creators. In Benkler's view, the new "networked information economy" allows individuals and groups to be more productive than profit-seeking ventures. New types of collaboration, such as Wikipedia or SETI@Home, "offer defined improvements in autonomy, democratic discourse, cultural creation, and justice"-as long as government regulation aimed at protecting old-school information monoliths (such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) doesn't succeed. Non-market innovation is a good thing in itself and doesn't even have to threaten entrenched interests, Benkler argues; rather, "social production" can use resources that the industrial information economy leaves behind. Where Benkler excels is in bringing together disparate strands of the new information economy, from the democratization of the newsmedia via blogs to the online effort publicizing weaknesses in Diebold voting machines. Though Benkler doesn't really present any new ideas here, and sometimes draws simplistic distinctions, his defense of the Internet's power to enrich people's lives is often stirring." He gave a recent talk at TED summarizing many of these ideas ( http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/247). In addition, you can download the book for free at his web site (http://benkler.org/).

$ The Real Price of Everything: Rediscovering the Six Classics of Economics by Michael Lewis (Ed) (2007) [From Amazon.com description] "In his New York Times bestsellers Liar’s Poker and Moneyball, Michael Lewis gave us an unprecedented look at what goes on behind the scenes on Wall Street. Now he takes us back across the centuries to explore the four classics that created and defined not just Wall Street, but the entire economic system we live under today. Brought together with Lewis’s illuminating editorial commentary, they form an essential reference for any student of economics—in fact, for anyone who wants to understand the market forces and government policies that have shaped our world, and will continue to shape our future. Includes: 1776: The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith; 1798: An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus; 1817: Principles of Political Economy and Taxation by David Ricardo; 1899: The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions by Thorstein Veblen; 1936: The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money by John Maynard Keynes."

$ Statecraft: And How to Restore America's Standing in the World by Dennis Ross (2007) is really a book is about mediation and negotiation, which takes human behavior of opposing groups into account during negotiations. "Ross, the Clinton administration's Middle East envoy (The Missing Peace) makes the seemingly dreary, opaque processes of international diplomacy as coherent, absorbing and occasionally dramatic as a procedural thriller. He conceives of statecraft as a subtle orchestration of foreign policy 'assets,' including intelligence and analysis, diplomacy, sanctions, economic aid and military pressure. Most of all, it requires negotiations: the book's middle section is a lengthy tutorial on the nuts and bolts of epic negotiating, Ross's forte, complete with tips on how and when to stage angry outbursts at the conference table. The author illustrates with case studies of foreign policy triumphs and disasters (many of which he had a hand in), from German reunification to the war in Iraq. The book is an avowedly 'neo-liberal' rebuke of Bush's unilateralist, 'faith-based' foreign policy blundering. Indeed, with its call for virtuoso state craftsmanship and its detailed proposals on everything from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or Iranian nuclear ambitions to relations with China, it could well be Ross's application for the 2009 secretary of state opening. If so, it's an impressive one, full of canny, judicious insights into the making of foreign policy." [From Amazon.com]

Note: many of the other books mentioned in these lists also touch on these sub topics.

$ Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Road Trip by Jim Rogers (2003) is another fascinating story of his 1999 investing trip around the world by with a BMW and special trailer. Again he analyzes markets as he goes and has many thoughts on commodities, China, and many other global factors.

$ Investment Biker: Around the World with Jim Rogers by Jim Rogers (2003) [from Amazon] "This is the fascinating story of his 1990 investing trip around the world by motorcycle, with many tidbits of hard-headed advice for investing in foreign markets."

$ Passport to Profits: Why the Next Investment Windfalls Will Be Found Abroad and How to Grab Your Share by Mark Mobius and Stephen Fenichell (2000) is a personal tour of foreign markets and how he analyzes their potential.

$ A Zebra In Lion Country: Ralph Wanger's Investment Survival Guide by Ralph Wanger and Everett Mattlin (1997) he explains his methods for investing in quality small cap growth stocks at a reasonable price.

$ The Bond King: Investment Secrets from PIMCO's Bill Gross by Timothy Middleton and Peter L. Bernstein (2006) discusses Gross's successful bond investment philosophy.

$ The Only Three Questions That Count: Investing by Knowing What Others Don't by Kenneth L. Fisher, Jennifer Chou, Lara Hoffmans (2007) discusses Fisher's unorthodox investment philosophy, although mixed with his opinionated political outlook.

$ The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics by Jonathan Chait (2007) (from Amazon.com) "The author, a senior editor at the New Republic, is best known for declaring I hate President George W. Bush in 2003. This book traces the roots of his dislike back 30 years, when supply-side economics took over the Republican Party and made cutting taxes the GOP answer to all political and economic questions. American politics has been hijacked by a tiny coterie of right-wing economic extremists, Chait declares, some of them ideological zealots, others merely greedy, a few of them possibly insane. To which he adds, the Republicans' success at defeating the democratic process explains why it has been able to enact its agenda despite a lack of popular support. The rhetoric is inflammatory, but the case is laid out with clarity. Chait claims that traditional Republicans, religious people and social, fiscal and foreign policy conservatives have been cheated as much as liberals, and that unparalleled corruption and ruthless cynicism in Washington and the timidity of nonpartisan media allow the minority to rule. His analysis should appeal to anyone interested in politics, though many may find the style too irritating to endure."

Note: many of the other books mentioned in these lists also touch on these sub topics.

$# Stocks for the Long Run by Jeremy Seigel (4th edition, 2007) is a good overview of the stock market asset class with new research of long term returns, although with a bullish orientation.

$# The Future for Investors: Why the Tried and the True Triumph Over the Bold and the New by Jeremy J. Siegel (2005) discusses shifts in markets and hedging strategies using stocks.

$# The Five Rules for Successful Stock Investing by Pat Dorsey (2004) is an overview of stock fundamental analysis covering reading financial statements, finding great companies, analyzing different sectors emphasizing the analysis of economic moats.

$# Investments by Zvi Bodie, Alex Kane, and Alan Marcus (revised 2006) [from Amazon.com] "is the leading textbook for the graduate/MBA investments market. It is recognized as the best blend of practical and theoretical coverage, while maintaining an appropriate rigor and clear writing style. Its unifying theme is that security markets are nearly efficient, meaning that most securities are usually priced appropriately given their risk and return attributes. The text places greater emphasis on asset allocation, and offers a much broader and deeper treatment of futures, options, and other derivative security markets than most investment texts."

$# The (Mis) Behavior of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin And Reward by Benoit Mandelbrot and Richard Hudson (2006) is an excellent discussion of how markets are really not Gaussian. This can be read along with Taleb's books. It is more an analysis of market behavior, not about investing per-se. (See Wikipedia entry on Mandelbrot).

$ The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2010). [From Amazon] "Four hundred years ago, Francis Bacon warned that our minds are wired to deceive us. "Beware the fallacies into which undisciplined thinkers most easily fall--they are the real distorting prisms of human nature." Chief among them: "Assuming more order than exists in chaotic nature." Now consider the typical stock market report: "Today investors bid shares down out of concern over Iranian oil production." Sigh. We're still doing it. Our brains are wired for narrative, not statistical uncertainty. And so we tell ourselves simple stories to explain complex thing we don't--and, most importantly, can't--know. The truth is that we have no idea why stock markets go up or down on any given day, and whatever reason we give is sure to be grossly simplified, if not flat out wrong. Nassim Nicholas Taleb first made this argument in Fooled by Randomness, an engaging look at the history and reasons for our predilection for self-deception when it comes to statistics. Now, in The Black Swan: the Impact of the Highly Improbable, he focuses on that most dismal of sciences, predicting the future. Forecasting is not just at the heart of Wall Street, but it’s something each of us does every time we make an insurance payment or strap on a seat belt. The problem, Nassim explains, is that we place too much weight on the odds that past events will repeat (diligently trying to follow the path of the "millionaire next door," when unrepeatable chance is a better explanation). Instead, the really important events are rare and unpredictable. He calls them Black Swans, which is a reference to a 17th century philosophical thought experiment. In Europe all anyone had ever seen were white swans; indeed, "all swans are white" had long been used as the standard example of a scientific truth. So what was the chance of seeing a black one? Impossible to calculate, or at least they were until 1697, when explorers found Cygnus atratus in Australia. Nassim argues that most of the really big events in our world are rare and unpredictable, and thus trying to extract generalizable stories to explain them may be emotionally satisfying, but it's practically useless. September 11th is one such example, and stock market crashes are another. Or, as he puts it, "History does not crawl, it jumps." Our assumptions grow out of the bell-curve predictability of what he calls "Mediocristan," while our world is really shaped by the wild powerlaw swings of "Extremistan." In full disclosure, I'm a long admirer of Taleb's work and a few of my comments on drafts found their way into the book. I, too, look at the world through the powerlaw lens, and I too find that it reveals how many of our assumptions are wrong. But Taleb takes this to a new level with a delightful romp through history, economics, and the frailties of human nature."

$ The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2007) is more detailed discussion of these unpredictable (very non-Gaussian!) events. The philosophy applies to much of non-financial areas as well. A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. His Web site http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/ contains "interesting" interviews and is a great read.

$ Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb (2005) is more directly concerned about finance than The Black Swan, but is no less thought-provoking than Mandelbrot's mis-behavior book. Taleb explores how we confuse luck with skill, and the importance of trying to figure out which is which.

# Fractals and Scaling In Finance by Benoit Mandelbrot (1997) combines his original mathematics classic papers contributes to finance and new material tying these together to helps to lay a foundation for how speculative prices vary in time and evaluating risks in trading strategies.

$# Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another by Philip Ball (2006) shows how the application of the laws of modern physics to the social sciences can greatly enrich our understanding of the laws of human behavior. So this connects some of the issues of Mandelbrot's power law distributions with behavioral finance. Although very readable, it covers topics somewhat removed from personal finance.

$ Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart by Ian Ayers (2007). (Derived from Amazon.com review) Yale Law School professor and econometrician Ayres argues that the creation of huge data sets allows knowledgeable individuals and corporations to make previously impossible predictions often more much accurate than "experts" intuitive predictions. He calls the data set analysts super crunchers and discusses changes they're making to industries like medical diagnostics, air travel pricing, screenwriting, how the corporate world tries to manipulate consumer behavior and telling consumers how to fight back. His real mission is to educate readers about the basics of statistics and hypothesis testing, spending most of his time in an edifying and entertaining discussion of the use of regression and randomized trials. He finds that statistical methods are often more accurate than the more intuitive conclusions drawn by experts. He shows the importance that statistical literacy can play in our lives, especially now that technology permits it to occur on a scale never before imagined. His web site is http://islandia.law.yale.edu/ayres/.

$ Chaotics: The Business of Managing and Marketing in the Age of Turbulence by Philip Kotler, John A. Caslione (2009) [From Amazon.com] "We have entered into an entirely new era, an age of increasingly frequent and intense periods of turbulence in the global economy. Unlike past recessions, today's crises have precipitated a need for businesses to develop a new mindset, one that takes into account intermittent periods of disturbance, allowing them to thrive while under the constant threat of chaos. Complete with metrics and measurements, "Chaotics" outlines a powerful new system for managing waves of uncertainty affecting customers, employees, and other stakeholders. In this climate of increased turbulence, no organization can survive with less." Part of an Amazon reader review "The material is carefully organized within eight chapters. First, review the main causes of turbulence, then shift their attention to the sequence of eight steps of the chaotics implementation cycle that will enable business leaders to navigate 'the unpredictable and uncertain waters of disruptive turbulence in what they characterize as the 'Age of Turbulence': 1. Identify sources of turbulence and chaos; 2. Identify management's wrong responses to turbulence; 3. Establish early-warning systems; 4. Construct key scenarios and strategies; 5. Prioritize key scenarios and select strategy; 6. Implement chaotics strategic management behaviors; 7. Implement chaotics strategic marketing behaviors; 8. Achieve business enterprise sustainability."

$ The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World by Paul Gilding (2011) [From Amazon.com] " "One of those who has been warning me of [a coming crisis] for a long time is Paul Gilding, the Australian environmental business expert. He has a name for this moment-when both Mother Nature and Father Greed have hit the wall at once-'The Great Disruption.' "-Thomas Friedman in the New York Times. It's time to stop just worrying about climate change, says Paul Gilding. We need instead to brace for impact because global crisis is no longer avoidable. This Great Disruption started in 2008, with spiking food and oil prices and dramatic ecological changes, such as the melting ice caps. It is not simply about fossil fuels and carbon footprints. We have come to the end of Economic Growth, Version 1.0, a world economy based on consumption and waste, where we lived beyond the means of our planet's ecosystems and resources. The Great Disruption offers a stark and unflinching look at the challenge humanity faces-yet also a deeply optimistic message. The coming decades will see loss, suffering, and conflict as our planetary overdraft is paid; however, they will also bring out the best humanity can offer: compassion, innovation, resilience, and adaptability. Gilding tells us how to fight-and win-what he calls The One Degree War to prevent catastrophic warming of the earth, and how to start today. The crisis represents a rare chance to replace our addiction to growth with an ethic of sustainability, and it's already happening. It's also an unmatched business opportunity: Old industries will collapse while new companies will literally reshape our economy. In the aftermath of the Great Disruption, we will measure "growth" in a new way. It will mean not quantity of stuff but quality and happiness of life. Yes, there is life after shopping."

$ Don't Count on It!: Reflections on Investment Illusions, Capitalism, "Mutual" Funds, Indexing, Entrepreneurship, Idealism, and Heroes by John C. Bogle (2011) [From Amazon.com] "Insights into investing and leadership from the founder of The Vanguard Group Throughout his legendary career, John Bogle-founder of the Vanguard mutual fund group and creator of the first index mutual fund-has helped investors build wealth the right way, while, at the same time, leading a tireless campaign to restore common sense to the investment world. A collection of essays based on speeches delivered to professional groups and college students in recent years, in Don't Count on It is organized around eight themes * Illusion versus reality in investing; * Indexing to market returns; * Failures of capitalism; * The flawed structure of the mutual fund industry; * The spirit of entrepreneurship; * What is enough in business, and in life; * Advice to America's future leaders; * The unforgettable characters who have shaped his career".

$ Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life by John C. Bogle (2008) [From Amazon.com] "Written by John C. Bogle–the legendary founder of the Vanguard Mutual Fund–Enough. offers his unparalleled insights on money, the values we should emulate in our business and professional callings, and what we should consider as the true treasures in our lives. Inspired in large measure by the hundreds of lectures Bogle has delivered to professional groups and college students in recent years, this book will help you discover what it really means to have 'enough' and how close you are to really having it.".

$ The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism by John C. Bogle (2006) [From Amazon.com] "Despite its inflated title, this volume is a worthy jeremiad against corporate excess, especially the kind hastened by the mutual fund industry that Bogle, former CEO of low-cost Vanguard, knows well. Among the problems: inflated executive compensation and creative accounting that allows companies to claim profits even when they're in the red. Mutual fund companies, Bogle charges, care more about short-term results than long-term value, and many of them gain profits for larger parent corporations by charging investors unnecessary fees that undermine the funds' net returns. To remedy such problems, Bogle writes, mutual fund owners and their fiduciaries must exercise the corporate responsibility they now shirk, and fund boards must be reshaped to serve the interests of shareholders. He advances in all seriousness Warren Buffett's once-joking idea for a high tax on short-term trading gains and calls for a federal commission to examine the way pension funds are managed, as well as the state of our retirement systems in general. While other recent books, such as David Swensen's Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment, marry similar criticisms with more advice for individual investors, Bogle—a rock-ribbed Republican businessman—still deserves attention in the precincts of power."

$ The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy by William Greider (2004) [From Amazon.com] "The good news is, American capitalism has "solved the economic problem" of overcoming scarcity, says veteran journalist Greider, currently with the Nation. Most Americans live materially comfortable lives. The bad news: capitalism seems increasingly dysfunctional and alienating, and fundamentally conflicts with humanity's noneconomic values. Greider says we have the luxury and responsibility now to repair this, to transform the essential purpose of our economic system from the relentless pursuit of "more" to the fulfillment of "human needs." Greider (Secrets of the Temple) breaks from the standard left-wing critique in one critical respect: he believes the system will be changed not by activist government but by a variety of small-scale reformers working to transform the economic system from within. Greider reports on experiments in corporate governance, especially employee ownership and consultative decision making. He investigates initiatives in corporate financing, most significantly, the growing practice of socially responsible investing by union and pension funds. Toward ecological sustainability, Greider's proposals include industries' developing "closed-loop recycling that mimics nature." Arguing that current government policies amplify capitalism's distortions, Greider emphasizes redirecting government expenditures from corporate subsidies to long-term social investments. Greider is immoderately optimistic, but without illusions about the challenges these grassroots movements face. Wisely, he recommends local experiments before considering any grandiose plans. Greider concedes that people might perceive a "touchy-feely wishful thinking" in some of the reformers' projects, and that quality is not absent from the book, but his overall framework is fresh and valuable, and his reporting on specific efforts is resourceful and illuminating."

$ Creative Capitalism: A Conversation with Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Other Economic Leaders Conor Clarke (Contrib.), Michale Kinsley (ed)(2008) who discuss the two alternative approaches to mitigating the negative effects of full-bore capitalism through corporate contributions vs the contributions of shareholders through their private contributions from their corporation-maximized shareholder profits.

$ Investing With Your Values: Making Money and Making a Difference by Hal Brill, Jack A. Brill, and Cliff Feigenbaum (2000) goes into the details of socially responsible investing (SRI). Feigenbaum writes the http://www.greenmoney.org/ web site (also see the http://www.socialinvest.org/ web site).

$ Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition by Lester Brown (2008) [Amazon.com description] "In this updated edition of the landmark Plan B, Lester Brown outlines a survival strategy for our early twenty-first-century civilization. The world faces many environmental trends of disruption and decline, including rising temperatures and spreading water shortage. In addition to these looming threats, we face the peaking of oil, annual population growth of 70 million, a widening global economic divide, and a growing list of failing states. The scale and complexity of issues facing our fast-forward world have no precedent. With Plan A, business as usual, we have neglected these issues overly long. In Plan B 3.0, Lester R. Brown warns that the only effective response now is a World War II-type mobilization like that in the United States after the attack on Pearl Harbor." Lester Brown is President of the Earth Policy Institute

$ The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics by Riane Eisler (2007) describes the real wealth of a nation is in its people and how a caring collaborative economy can result in a fairer more productive economy based more on partnerships between the players rather than the common denomination model found in many (but not all) economies.

$ Getting a Life: Strategies for Simple Living Based on the Revolutionary Program for Financial Freedom, "Your Money or Your Life" by Jacquelyn Blix and David Heitmiller (1999) extends some of the discussion of "Your Money or Your Life". Not SRI per-se.

$ Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin (1999) discusses balance in ones life and ways to get there. Not SRI per-se.

$ The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption by John Perkins (2007) discusses problems of global economic corruption.

$ The Clean Tech Revolution: The Next Big Growth and Investment Opportunity by Ron Pernick, Clint Wilder (2007). [Derived from Amazon.com description] Alternative energy, once the domain of hippies and off-the-grid fringe enthusiasts, has gone mainstream. Although technologies such as solar and wind power, plant-based fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel, and "green" buildings have become hip because of environmental awareness and global climate change, the real reason behind their increasing profile is economics. When clean energy sources begin to rival more traditional ones on a cost basis, which is beginning to happen now owing to advances related to the microchip and economies of scale, corporations will quickly begin to take notice. Although Pernick and Wilder state that they are not financial advisors, they profile the leading companies involved in the most promising of these alternative energies, which gives the reader a place to begin doing further research into investment opportunities. The book is an excellent update on the current state of the industry and a who's who of the companies poised to profit from this exciting array of technologies. .

$ Pensionize Your Nest Egg: How to Use Product Allocation to Create a Guaranteed Income for Life by Moshe A. Milevsky, Alexandra C. Macqueen (2010) [Amazon.com] "Product Description: Pensionize Verb. 1. To convert money into income you can't outlive. 2. To create your own personal pension, a monthly income that lasts for the rest of your natural life. With the subpar performance of the markets, record-high personal debt levels, and shockingly low savings rates, it's clear that many Canadians expecting to retire in the next decade simply don't have a sufficient nest egg to ensure a worry-free retirement. Making matters worse, only about one-third of Canadians currently belong to a formal, or registered, pension plan; and even a large number of that "lucky third" will not retire with a guaranteed pension income. If you no longer have the time to wait and hope for your traditional investments to pay off, the answer is to "pensionize your nest egg" using the new technique of product allocation set out in this book. Pensionize Your Nest Egg explains how to * Recognize if you really have a pension or just a tax-sheltered savings plan. * Become informed about the new risks you and your nest egg face in retirement and why asset allocation, despite its value in the accumulation stage of life, is not sufficient to protect you and your money. * Measure your retirement sustainability quotient (RSQ) and your Financial Legacy Value (FLV)-then choose a retirement income plan on the Retirement Income Frontier. * Understand how product allocation differs from asset allocation, how to allocate your nest egg across three product silos, and learn about the new financial products that are available to protect against the new risks you face. * Follow a seven-step process to close your Pension Income Gap and convert your retirement savings into a secure stream of lifetime income. Whether you do it yourself or work with a financial advisor, Pensionize Your Nest Egg gives you a simple plan to create a guaranteed retirement income-for life." Although this was written for a Canadian audience, it maps nice to American equivalents of Social Security, private pensions, 401k and IRA equivalents.

$ Your Money Milestones: A Guide to Making the 9 Most Important Financial Decisions of Your Life by Moshe A. Milevsky (2010) [Amazon.com] "Admitting that he lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in the latest economic downturn by doing everything exactly right, Milevsky (Are You a Stock or a Bond?) revises personal finance planning now that all the received wisdom is out the window. He introduces readers to a simpler model employing basic arithmetic: assessing the value of assets (addition), allotting funds for future liabilities (subtraction), planning for even spending over time (division), and preparing for unanticipated occurrences (multiplication). He examines the nine major money milestones including paying off student loans, having children, purchasing a home, and retiring—with a decidedly contrarian twist: he insists that most people should not purchase a home until they are in their 50s or 60s, when they have unlocked most of their labor or human capital and converted it into financial capital. With helpful chapter summaries and designed for readers to pick and choose which chapters are most germane to their current stage of life, this is a comprehensive and readable introduction to wealth management." Makes a big point that one's human capital should be included in planning and asset allocation decisions. It is often ignored. He makes various planning tools mentioned in the book available on a Web site http://www.qwema.ca/ .

$ The Buckets of Money Retirement Solution: The Ultimate Guide to Income for Life by Raymond J. Lucia (Author), Ben Stein (Foreword) (2010) [Amazon.com] "Investors, shell-shocked by the “Great Recession” of 2008-2009, are looking for answers, for something fresher than the old ‘buy-and-hold’ mantra. They hunger for stability, yet yearn for growth to rejuvenate their battered portfolios. Ray Lucia’s The Buckets of Money Retirement Solution: The Ultimate Guide to Income for Life provides just that—a reassuring and scientifically proven strategy that gives investors both growth and income. Lucia, a Certified Financial Planner who’s helped thousands of people invest more than $2 billion, explains how to spend down ‘safe’ buckets (containing, for example, Treasuries, CDs, bonds), while leaving a riskier bucket (real estate, stocks and alternative investments) to grow long-term. This strategy shields investors from the short-term ups and downs of the market. And it gives them the courage and discipline to stay invested no matter what the future holds. Written in a breezy, accessible style and loaded with tons of examples and clear, specific calculations, the book explains how to set your financial goals, divvy up your money accordingly, and then invest intelligently. With this book as your guide, readers will learn how to achieve both income and growth while at the same time reducing risk. “All in all,” Lucia writes, “this plan is akin to a sports car that seats six, approximating the best of both worlds. In this case by being a conservative strategy that’s also growth-oriented.” Almost every kind of investment—stocks, bonds, commodities, real estate—plunged in the past year or two, turning off millions of investors who’d been planning for and counting on a reasonably comfortable retirement. These retirees or near-retirees need solutions…something fresher than the old ‘buy-and-hold’ mantra. Yet here’s what they hear from the financial-services industry: Set up an asset-allocation model, then take a systematic withdrawal to support your retirement…remembering, of course, to rebalance the accounts to remain in sync with the model. Wrong! That maximizes the advisors’ fees but doesn’t protect the investors’ assets during the tough times." Although it has a sales pitch feel to it, there are some useful ideas such as partial annuitization".

$# Retirement Income Redesigned: Master Plans for Distribution: An Adviser's Guide for Funding Boomers' Best Years by Harold Evensky and Deena B Katz (Editors) (April 2007) is a collection of 20 essays on retirement planning shifting the focus of much of the current literature from the accumulation of assets to their distribution during retirement.

$ Live Long and Prosper: Invest in Your Happiness, Health and Wealth for Retirement and Beyond by Steve Vernon (2004) is both about the psychological aspects and the financial. Amongst other things he discusses figuring out how much you will need, and various methods of taking money out of retirement savings. He is a semi-retired VP of Watson Wyatt Worldwide that provides retirement services for many companies internationally. He has a site: http://www.restoflife.com/ with lots of supplementary material on it.

$ The Number: A Completely Different Way to Think About the Rest of Your Life by Lee Eisenberg (2006) suggests that many peoples goals of saving until they reach their "number" or how much they need to retire may not be the best or only way to prepare for retirement. He suggests that the future(s) we envision may be like and may in fact be more affordable. His web site is http://www.TheNumberBook.com/.

Your Complete Retirement Planning Road Map: The Leave-Nothing-to-Chance, Worry-Free, All-Systems-Go Guide by Ed Slott (2006) is not an investment book, but rather discusses the process of managing and accessing their retirement funds while avoiding costly missteps. It focuses on the savings one already has, providing the steps necessary for "protecting, preserving and passing the balance (if any) in their retirement account to their heirs.".

$ The New Retirementality: Planning Your Life and Living Your Dreams... at Any Age You Want by Mitch Anthony (2006) "Author Mitch Anthony reveals the latest thinking about retirement to show readers:Why our culture has undergone a transformational shift concerning retirement and how to adapt to this changeHow to calculate income for life using powerful new methods from leading analysts and plannersWhat are the vital signs that indicate retirement is the right decision - how to live a vibrant life and find meaning outside the traditional world of work" (Amazon.com). His web site is http://www.flpinc.com/.

$ AARP Crash Course in Estate Planning, Updated Edition: The Essential Guide to Wills, Trusts, and Your Personal Legacy by Michael T. Palermo (Author), Ric Edelman (Foreword) (2009) (from Amazon.com) "Scrutinized for accuracy by AARP’s legal specialists, and completely up-to-date, this indispensable volume covers every aspect of planning an estate and creating a will. A crash course in one handy volume, the book walks readers through the entire process, from understanding the distinction between probate and nonprobate property to delegating a durable power of attorney, and from resolving possible tax issues ahead of time to safeguarding your assets. In these pages you will find: • Comparisons of wills and simple living trusts. • Advice on guardianship and advanced medical directives. • Explanations of the role and powers of a trustee and what steps to take in the case of suspected misconduct. • A primer on marshaling and protecting retirement assets. • Help in planning for children with disabilities. • A primer on marshaling and protecting retirement assets. • Help in planning for children with disabilities. • Ideas for making sure your money stays in the family in case a spouse remarries; and much, much more."

Note: many of the other books mentioned in these lists also touch on the retirement income topics. In addition, there is some discussion on this topic in another list of selected books on non-financial aspects of thinking about retirement.

Index Investing forums

The Bogleheads forum - is dedicated to the civil discussion of investing, personal finance, and consumer issues. Many discussions on low-cost index investing. The have an excellent Financial Wiki covering a wide range of topics.

Morninstar's Bogleheads(r) Unite forum is the new name of the former Morningstar Vanguard Diehards forum. It is a similar discussion group as the above Bogleheads forum.

Index Investing Journals

Index Universeis both a Web site and journal academic articles dedicated to index and ETF investing.

Quality Index Investing blogs

The Bogle eBlog contains academic posts, talks, congressional testimony, articles etc. written by Jack Bogle (founder of Vanguard) with strong emphasis of low-cost index investing.

Efficient Frontier.com is the Web site of William J. Bernstein. He previously published insightful periodic articles on index investging which are avaliable on the archived web site.

Asset Class Newsletter is a regular newsletter formerly published by TAM Asset Management, which merged with Dynamic Funds Management to form Equius Partners with a heavy emphasis on index investing.

Larry Swedroe's blog (on CBS Moneywatch) publishes articles related to index-style investing (in addition to a number of the books listed above). Swedroe is a Boglehead.

Rick Ferri's blog publishes articles related to index-style investing (in addition to a number of the books listed above). Ferri is a Boglehead.

Coffee House Investor is a web site dedicated to simplified index investing.

Financial Research (more academic)

Journal of Financial Planning makes the articles for the current issues available. Many useful academic articles related to personal financial planning, investing, safe withdrawal rates, etc..

Center for Retirement Research at Boston College has many useful studies, papers, etc. on retirement financial issues.

Vanguard Institutional Investors Research and Commentary site has many interesting research studies on indexing, asset classes, saving and retirement issues. A number of other big investment companies (Fidelity, T.R. Price, USAA, etc.) also have published similar studies. They all generally have various types of savings and retirement calculators.

Latest Journal Articles And Working Papers In Finance lists recent articles (on third party sites) to keep up with the latest research.

CFA Institute Webcasts, Podcasts and on-line learning occasionally has very useful material available to non-members (conferences, etc).

Financial Research (practical)

Morningstar Reports on market and sectors, as well as specific fund, ETF stock, bond quotes and data.

Yahoo Finance Reports on market and sectors, as well as specific fund, ETF stock, bond quotes and data.

AAII American Association of Independent Investors has useful articles on investing and saving for life events including for and during retirement.

Financial Calculators are offered by the large mutual fund companies, but there is some other useful software available on the net. But buyer-beware. The past can not reliably predict the future as we have seen too often - especially if Black Swan events are in the offering. That said, these calculators are still someone useful for rough estimating if you keep the caviat in mind.

Peter Ponzo, PhD nick-named "Gummy" is a retired Canadian academic statistician who had published (for 15 years) an excellent set of financial spreadsheets and commentary on how to use (or mis-use) them. He is no longer active, but his Excel spreadsheets are still available (free) through Gummy Stuff.

Simba's Backtesting Spreadsheet (a Boglehead collaborative project) is a free spreadsheet for backtesting portfolio index fund returns from 1972 to present[1985 to present if you want to include certain Sector/Tax-Exempt funds that started after 1985] of various Vanguard Mutual Funds. This tool is customizable and you can add the returns for any mutual fund. The previous years data is updated each year. For Excel and Open Office. The trick in using the spreadsheet is to used the corresponding index fund as a proxy.

Jim Otar's Retirement Calculator has a free retirement calculator (and a more extensive one you can then purchase) that gos along with his book Unveiling The Retirement Myth by Jim C. Otar (2009).