Here are the top 5 investment books that are most frequently recommended by experienced private investors, value investors, fund managers, and wealth advisors — a mix of timeless classics and a couple of more recent (but already proven) ones. These are the ones that consistently show up on “must-read” lists from people who actually manage money successfully.
Burton G. Malkeil
1973 (latest edition 2023)
1973 (latest edition 2023)
Poor Charlie’s Almanack
Charlie Munger (compiled by Peter Kaufman)
2005 (expanded 2023)
Charlie Munger (compiled by Peter Kaufman)
2005 (expanded 2023)
This collection of Munger’s speeches and wisdom teaches mental models, multidisciplinary thinking, inversion, and the psychology of misjudgment — arguably more useful than pure investing books for lifelong decision-making.
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
Edwin Lefèvre
1923
Edwin Lefèvre
1923
This roman à clef (a very thinly veiled biography of legendary trader Jesse Livermore) is widely considered the greatest book ever written on trading psychology and real-world speculation. Written as a first-person narrative by “Larry Livingston” (Livermore), it reads like a gripping adventure novel full of booms, busts, cornering markets, and spectacular blow-ups.
If you only have time for two books, start with The Intelligent Investor (for the investing philosophy) and The Psychology of Money (for the behavioral side). Almost every successful private investor you’ll ever meet has internalized the core lessons from both.