I published this list ten years ago and I keep getting requests to update it, so here it is in all its infamy. Reading books
about investing does two things for you. First, as investors, we are only the limited product of our own experiences and therefore vulnerable unless we read and assimilate the accumulated wisdom of the great ones. Second, as it says on the façade of the Library of Congress: “Those who have not studied the past are condemned to repeat it.” Economic and particularly financial history definitely tends to repeat itself. I have two long shelves of the best books I have read that relate one way or another to investing. Since investing is about everything, my books relate to diverse subjects ranging from history to psychology. In no particular order here is my list, with star rankings from 1 to 5.The whole exercise is completely subjective.

Readability counts. Groupthink*****. Irving L Janis. Houghton Mifflin: 1982. (The best book ever written on the complexities and pitfalls of group decision making, which is what an investment management firm is all about.)

The Alchemy of Finance***. George Soros. Simon &Schuster: 1987. (The master is complex, dense, but superb. His best book.)
Panic on Wall Street***. Robert Sobel. Macmillan: 1978. (The definitive study of American panics.)

Manias, Panics, and Crashes****. Charles P. Kindleberger. Basic Books: 1988. (The best scholarly analysis of the species.)
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator*****. Edwin Lefevre. George H. Doran Company: 1923; reissued by J. Wiley: 1994. (The classic work about intuitive trading. No investor’s education is complete without reading it. )

The Money Game*****. Adam Smith. Random House: 1967. (Nobody writes like Gerry. Full of wisdom. It’s a pleasure to read. )
The Roaring ’80s***. Adam Smith. Summit Books: 1988. (More Gerry; if you get addicted, Supermoney is good, too.)