10 books like A Random Walk Down Wall Street

In my career as a corporate spy, I was able to see and learn many things I wasn’t supposed to. As a result, I saw the makings of what would become the world’s worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the 2008 Crash. At first, I thought I was the only one, until I read The Big Short. Michael Lewis documents the few oddballs and kooks prescient enough to read the financial tea leaves and see the crash coming. More than that, he shows how Wall Street didn’t care, until it was too late. 

If you’re like me and looking to use a side hustle as a means of escape from your job, you’ll need to adopt some extreme frugality habits. The Richest Man in Babylon is a series of parables that each teach an important lesson about money. One of the biggest lessons is that a portion of what you earn needs to be “yours to keep.” Learning how to set money aside will allow you to save up enough to transition from side hustle to main hustle. 

Think and Grow Rich is a self-help book that was written by Napoleon Hill and first published in 1937.

The book is still one of the bestselling books of all time. For me it changed my perspective on why I should have wealth and how it is selfish not to get rich.

It also taught me self-discipline, and the importance of surrounding oneself with like-minded individuals. Not only did it change my perspective on wealth it changed how I viewed people with money and how they attained it.

The book has sold millions of copies worldwide and has been recommended by numerous successful people, including Oprah Winfrey and Tony Robbins. It has been praised for its practical advice and ability to inspire readers to take action toward their goals and dreams.

While some critics argue that the book's focus on individual achievement may come at the expense of social responsibility… show more.

To build wealth, we need an environment that allows for unequal outcomes. The Friedmans argue that using societal or governmental force in the name of equality will destroy the environment where we are free to choose how wealth is grown. In their words: Freedom “preserves the opportunity for today's disadvantaged to become tomorrow's privileged and, in the process, enables almost everyone, from top to bottom, to enjoy a fuller and richer life.” Let the market determine the outcome. Bad ideas will wither away, and good ideas will thrive.

Case and Deaton tell an extremely sobering story about the recent decline in life expectancy in the United States.

It is a story about the crumbling foundation of what has traditionally been considered a meaningful life: the comfort of belonging to an organized religion, a stable marriage and family, a successful working career and home ownership.

In their place, the new reality is often one of low wages, failed personal relationships, erratic work patterns, pain, addiction to alcohol and drugs, and incidents of ultimate despair—suicide.

The underlying causes of this social transformation include technical changes in how we do work in our economy and globalization that have left behind those with lower levels of education, declining unionization, and the operation of various aspects of the health system.

In the case of the latter, the pharmaceutical companies get special attention in relation to the opioid epidemic but more generally the high… show more.

Who knew that a book on tax reform could be so interesting? Showdown at Gucci Gulch, which tells the story of the 1986 federal tax reform, remains the best in depth look at how a bill really becomes a law, including a cast of interesting characters, from Ronald Reagan to Dan Rostenkowski. The book is also a good primer on what a good tax system ought to look like and how myriad special interests invariably oppose such a system. Murray and Birnbaum were reporters for the Wall Street Journal who covered the 1986 tax reform and write with a reporter’s eye for detail. Really, this is an entertaining book.

Readers will be informed and stimulated by any book by Haidt, one of psychology’s great public intellectuals. This influential volume speaks to our polarized world, by identifying the moral virtues of both left and right, and advocating cross-partisan dialogue. As such, it sets the foundation for Haidt’s Heterodox Academy initiative, which advocates open, free-spirited campus conversations. 

It is personally rewarding to donate your time as a volunteer, no matter what your financial wealth is. But money certainly helps to fund causes in this material world. Brooks’ book shows that compassionate conservatism is an important driving force in America. He shows through extensive survey work that giving money to charity speaks louder than just talking about caring. He argues successfully, that those who are charitable improve life for all of us, and the selfish make us all worse off. Clearly, money can help you achieve true prosperity by helping others with it.

Bogle is a legend. He’s the guy who founded Vanguard investments. He’s the guy who brought index investing to the masses. He’s the guy I interviewed extensively for my book on indexing. He’s the guy who over many decades has helped small investors save billions in management fees with his introduction of low-cost passively managed (index) funds. John “Jack” Bogle has written half a dozen books, and his overall message is crystal clear: Successful investing means avoiding speculation, and avoiding high-cost speculators who want to gamble with your money. Start by reading this short book, and you may want to then read Bogle’s others. My mentor, who was known to many as Jack, died just a few years ago, he was almost 90, still smart as a tack, to the end on a mission help small investors. RIP, Jack. 

The most popular book by the father of value investing, The Intelligent Investor imparts Graham’s time-tested stock and bond selection principles in a manner that is less technical and more conversational than Graham and Dodd’s earlier Security Analysis. Graham’s core principles around conducting intrinsic value analysis first and then purchasing securities that the market has mispriced at below that value are all addressed here in wonderful Graham prose. Since he pioneered that strategy, it makes good sense to read directly from the master. 

Aside from that, what I like about this book is that it addresses the often overlooked but vital psychological aspects of investing. Last but not least, did I mention that The Intelligent Investor is Warren Buffett’s favorite investment book of all time? When I interviewed him for my own book, he stated that Graham’s book “just made clear sense to me as a book about… show more.