Liar's Poker

A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers

Lawrence G. McDonald, Patrick Robinson · 351 pages

One of the biggest questions of the financial crisis has not been answered until now. What happened at Lehman Brothers and why was it allowed to fail, with aftershocks that rocked the global economy? In this news-making, often astonishing book, a former Lehman Brothers Vice President gives us the straight answers--right from the belly of the beast.In A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, Larry McDo

Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives

Satyajit Das · 343 pages

Why I Left Goldman Sachs: A Wall Street Story

Greg Smith · 480 pages

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life

Alice Schroeder · 1,255 pages

Here is THE book recounting the life and times of one of the most respected men in the world, Warren Buffett. The legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir, but now he has allowed one writer, Alice Schroeder, unprecedented access to explore directly with him and with those closest to him his work, opinions, struggles, triumphs, follies, and wisdom. The result is the personally revealing

When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management

Roger Lowenstein · 281 pages

"John Meriwether, a famously successful Wall Street trader, spent the 1980s as a partner at Salomon Brothers, establishing the best - and the brainiest - bond arbitrage group in the world. A mysterious and shy midwesterner, he knitted together a group of Ph.D.-certified arbitrageurs who rewarded him with filial devotion and fabulous profits. Then, in 1991, in the wake of a scandal involving one of

F.I.A.S.C.O.: Guns, Booze and Bloodlust - The Truth About High Finance

Frank Partnoy · 254 pages

F.I.A.S.C.O. is an insider's diary, a shocking education in the jungle of high finance in the 1990s from New York to Tokyo. It tracks the progress of a young Morgan Stanley salesman as he learns the ropes of this sophisticated jungle, where billions of dollars are lost in the creation and trading of securities so unlikely and so complicated that almost nobody - certainly not the unwary or underedu

Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

Nassim Nicholas Taleb · 312 pages

"[Taleb is] Wall Street's principal dissident. . . . [Fooled By Randomness] is to conventional Wall Street wisdom approximately what Martin Luther's ninety-nine theses were to the Catholic Church."--Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker Finally in paperback, the word-of-mouth sensation that will change the way you think about the markets and the world. This book is about luck: more precisely how we

Principles

Ray Dalio · 592 pages

Bridgewater Associates founder, Ray Dalio, offers a five-step process to getting what you want out of life, which involves systemizing everything to run like a machine — which can then be fine-tuned.

The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It

Scott Patterson, Mike Chamberlain · 337 pages

"Beware of geeks bearing formulas." --Warren Buffett In March of 2006, the world's richest men sipped champagne in an opulent New York hotel. They were preparing to compete in a poker tournament with million-dollar stakes, but those numbers meant nothing to them. They were accustomed to risking billions. At the card table that night was Peter Muller, an eccentric, whip-smart whiz kid who'd

The New Tycoons: Inside the Trillion Dollar Private Equity Industry That Owns Everything

Jason Kelly

More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite

Sebastian Mallaby · 482 pages

Based on unprecedented access to the industry, including three hundred hours of interviews, economist/journalist Sebastian Mallaby tells the inside story of hedge funds, from their origins in the 1960s and 1970s to their role in the financial crisis of 2007-2009. Wealthy, powerful, and potentially dangerous, hedge fund moguls have become the It Boys of 21st century capitalism. Ken Griffin started

Goldman Sachs: The Culture of Success

Lisa Endlich · 336 pages

Fooling Some of the People All of the Time: A Long Short (and Now Complete) Story

David Einhorn · 426 pages

How far will some unscrupulous companies go to keep the truth about their dealings from the American investor? Farther than the eye can see, according to this account by Einhorn, the founder of Greenlight Capital, a long-short value-oriented hedge fund. Einhorn's firm has achieved greater than a 25 percent annualized net return for its investors since 1996, proof that Einhorn can literally put his

Swimming With Sharks: My Journey into the World of the Bankers

Joris Luyendijk · 288 pages

Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco

Bryan Burrough, John Helyar · 592 pages

Security Analysis

Benjamin Graham, David L. Dodd · 770 pages

Security Analysis is often referred to as the bible of value investing. It has been described by Warren Buffett as the best investment book he has ever read. Originally written in the 30's by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, it has been updated over the years, and remains relevant in the age of electronic trading.

Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice

Bill Browder · 403 pages

Bill Browder's journey started on the South Side of Chicago and moved through Stanford Business School to the dog-eat-dog world of hedge fund investing in the 1990s. It continued in Moscow, where Browder made his fortune heading the largest investment fund in Russia after the Soviet Union's collapse. But when he exposed the corrupt oligarchs who were robbing the companies in which he was investing

The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home

Dan Ariely · 334 pages

How can confusing directions actually help us? Why can large bonuses make CEOs less productive? Why is there such a big difference between what we think will make us happy and what really makes us happy? In his groundbreaking book Predictably Irrational, social scientist Dan Ariely revealed the multiple biases that lead us into making unwise decisions. Now, in The Upside of Irrationality, he expos

The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

Howard Marks · 180 pages

This book explains the keys to successful investment and the pitfalls that can destroy capital or ruin a career. Utilizing passages from his memos to illustrate his ideas, Marks teaches by example, detailing the development of an investment philosophy that fully acknowledges the complexities of investing and the perils of the financial world. Brilliantly applying insight to today's volatile market

Confessions of a Street Addict

James J. Cramer · 351 pages

Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond

Bruce C.N. Greenwald, Judd Kahn, Paul D. Sonkin, Michael van Biema · 316 pages

Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business

Rana Foroohar · 388 pages

"Eight years on from the biggest market meltdown since the Great Depression, the key lessons of the crisis of 2008 still remain unlearned--and our financial system is just as vulnerable as ever. Many of us know that our government failed to fix the banking system after the subprime mortgage crisis. But what few of us realize is how the misguided financial practices and philosophies that nearly top

The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of Americas Wealthy

Thomas J. Stanley, William D. Danko · 258 pages

Can you spot the millionaire next door? Who are the rich in this country? What do they do? Where do they shop? What do they drive? How do they invest? Where did their ancestors come from? How did they get rich? Can I ever become one of them? Get the answers in The Millionaire Next Door, the never-before-told story about wealth in America. You'll be surprised at what you find out. "Why aren't I as

The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works - and How It's Transforming the American Economy

Charles Fishman