A Reading List For Investors Seeking Worldly Wisdom

To ensure our readers have access to what we believe are the best books of all-time for informed investing we have created this list. Those who seek what Charlie Munger called “Worldly Wisdom”, should find what they are looking for here.

There are links to all the books in case you are inspired to purchase one.

Yes, I have read most of these books. Reading and lifelong learning is a passion of mine.

For you I hope they are inspirational references that provide a foundational model and the perspective necessary for successful investing.

It was quite fun to attempt to capture all of my favorite books in one place. Please enjoy the list and let us know if we are missing any books we should include!

Cheers, John

Real Estate Investment & Development

• Real Estate Finance & Investments - Peter Linneman, PhD

• Professional Real Estate Development - The ULI Guide to the Business - Richard B. Peiser, Suzanne Charles, Nick Egelanian, Sofia Dermis, Allen Hamilton

• Real Estate Development Principles & Practice - 5th Edition - Mike Miles, Laurence Netherton, Adrienne Schmitz

• Fundamentals of Building Construction: Materials & Methods - Edward Allen & Joseph Iano

• Heating, Cooling, and Lighting - Norbert Lechner

• Am I Being Too Subtle - Sam Zell

• Finance for Real Estate Development - Charles Long

• Strategy for Real Estate Companies: The Nine Essential Pillars of Success for Developers, Builders, and Investors
  

Business

• The Buffett Way - Robert Hagstrom

• What It Takes - Stephen Schwartzman

• Zero to One: Notes on Start-Ups, or How to Build the Future - Peter Thiel

• Poor Charlie’s Almanac - Charlie Munger, et al.

• Who Not How - Dan Sullivan

• How to Win Friends & Influence People - Dale Carnegie

• The War of Art - Steven Pressfield

• Security Analysis - Benjamin Graham

• The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham

• Influence - Robert Cialdini

• The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg

• The Lean Start-Up - Eric Ries

• Traction - Gino Wickman

• The One Thing - Gary Keller

• Blue Ocean Strategy - W. Chan Kim

• Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable - Seth Godin

• The Big Short - Michael Lewis

• Business Adventures - John Brooks

• Monkey Business: Swinging Through the Wall Street Jungle - John Rolfe & Peter Troob

• Reminiscences of a Stock Operator - Edwin Lefevre

• Market Wizards: Interview with Top Traders (#1 & 2) - Jack Schwager

Science & Math

• Principia Mathematica - Sir Isaac Newton

• Almagest - Ptolemy

• On The Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres (Revolutionibus) - Nicolaus Copernicus

• Astronomia Nova - Johannes Kepler

• Relativity - Albert Einstein

• A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking

• The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins

• Ice Age - John & Mary Gribbin

• Darwin’s Blind Spot: The Role of Living Interactions in Evolution - Frank Ryan

Classic Literature & Novels

• 1984 - George Orwell

• Animal Farm - George Orwell

• Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

• Moby Dick - Herman Melville

• Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

• The Last of the Mohicans - James Fenimore Cooper

• The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky

• Crime & Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

• The Idiot - Fyodor Doestoevsky

• War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

• For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway

• The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

• The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

• Far From the Maddening Crowd - Thomas Hardy

• Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

• The Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy

• David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

• Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

• Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo

• Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

• On the Road - Jack Kerouac

• Oedipus the King - Sophocles

• Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Philosophy & Religion

• The Bible

• The Blank Slate - Steven Pinker

• Meditations - Marcus Aurelius

• The Will To Power - Friedrich Nietzsche

• The Art of War - Sun Tzu

• Self Reliance - Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Aristotle - The Complete Works of Aristotle

• Plato - The Republic

History

• Guns, Germs, and Steel - Jared Diamond

• The Clockwork Universe - Edward Dolnick

• The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: From Marathon to Waterloo - Edward Creasy

• The Ascent of Money - Niall Ferguson

• Triumph of the City - Edward Glaeser

• Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk - Peter Bernstein

Biographies

• Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. - Ron Chernow

• Benjamin Franklin: An American Life - Walter Isaacson

• Alexander Hamilton - Ron Chernow

• George Washington: A Life - Ron Chernow

• The First Tycoon The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt - T.J. Stiles

• The House of (JP) Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance - Ron Chernow

• The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris

• The Last Lion: Winston Churchill - Paul Reid, William Manchester

• Steve Jobs- Walter Isaacson

• Elon Musk - Walter Isaacson

Personal Improvement

• The Miracle Morning - Hal Elrod

• Rich Dad, Poor Dad - Robert Kiyosaki

• Your Next Five Moves: Master the Art of Business Strategy - Patrick Bet-David

• Awaken the Power Within - Tony Robbins

• The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Meditation - Joan Budilovsky, Eve Adamson