Top 5 books

http://gothamist.com/2016/03/10/the_best_1980s_nyc_books_as_recomme.php

If you haven’t read John T. Reed’s analysis of this book, you should.

“RDPD is one of the dumbest financial advice books I have ever read. It contains many factual errors and numerous extremely unlikely accounts of events that supposedly occurred.”

“RDPD contains much wrong advice, much bad advice, some dangerous advice, and virtually no good advice.”

The Drifters

I did indeed. My brain is still in vacation mode.

The fact you know that makes you awesome.

Having done CFA (lol), and read intelligent investor and some others, I do agree from a technical standpoint. The reason why i did list it here, and occasionally (depending on a person), might cautiously suggest it to someone with no financial background, is that it at least nudges a person with a usual consumer mentality " stop buying bs, try buying cashflow positive item for a change". Once that seed is planted, im convinced, a person would seek better books.

Funny to see books like meditions and master and margarita. I’ve tried reading both a few years back, couldn’t get much past first few chapters. Maybe I’ll give them another shot (especially M&M)… speaking russian and all.

^i had to get through meditations on audible. don’t think i would have read it cover to cover.

Ya’ll know that Rich Dad Poor Dad is a fictional tale, right?

+1 Greenman

Fantastic read. Bought a copy last year and have read it several times since then.

I don’t really have a problem with a person fictionalizing something to get a point across, kinda like “The Richest Man in Babylon” or “The Wealthy Barber”. (Two good books, BTW.)

I don’t really have a problem with all the puffery, like “I chose to desert my unit because of my conscience” or “I was a leader of men in the US Marine Corps”. That’s his literary freedom.

What I have a problem with is the fact that his actual technical advice, when he actually gives some, is almost always either wrong, illegal, or it’s just stupid. Like “open a corporation so you can deduct a Ferrari”. You don’t have to open a corporation to deduct business expenses, and a Ferrari wouldn’t be deductible regardless of whether it was purchased by a corporation or an individual. This advice happens to be wrong, illegal, immoral, and stupid.

I have a problem with the fact that he redefines words, like “asset” and “liability”. He says “an asset is anything that puts money in my pocket. A liability is anything that takes money out of my pocket. Therefore my residence is a liability and a rental house is an asset.” He ignores the fact that the houses are assets and the mortgages are liabilities, regardless of whether they are rented, owned, lived in, or otherwise.

He also redefines “derivative”. “Warren Buffett calls derivatives ‘weapons of financial mass destruction’. A stock is a derivative of a company. Therefore, stocks are derivatives, and a weapon of financial mass destruction. They will destroy you. Warren Buffett says so.” I can’t even begin to explain how intellectually dishonest and dumb this statement is.

Ironically WB invests in many stocks

http://www.valuewalk.com/books/my-full-recommended-reading-list/

non-investing related top 5

1984

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Plato’s the Last Day’s of Socrates

Siddhartha

Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises

Great book. Surprised to see so much 1984 and yet only me suggesting Animal Farm. I think 1984 is the better Orwell book, but OPs question was what you want your kids to read. I think if all these Occupy types and other left-wing types read Animal Farm as kids, it would have done the world a big favour. I read this first probably in grade 6/7 and it changed my outlook on how the world should work from that point forward.

Non-Finance related:

Virtually anything by Paul Theroux (my favorite author)

^

I still remember reading animal farm, 1984, catch-22, farenheit 451, animal farm, lord of the flies, catcher in the rye, brave new world, a river runs through it and many other books in highschool. It would be nice to revisit some now that I am an adult. Hemingway was my favorite author- in addition to his famous works like For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Farewell to Arms, Old Man and The Sea he also has a great anthology of short stories. Also, ditched religion around that time so reading a lot of depressing crap seemed to fit.

every kid read that racist book Of Mice and Men but I think Animal Farm is the much better book.

The only Hemingway book I ever read was “Old Man and the Sea”. I tried to read “The Sun Also Rises” but I got so depressed after the first chapter that I just put it down and cried. I’ve heard his other books aren’t much better.

I read “Of Mice and Men” and liked it so much that I read “Cannery Row”. I liked Cannery Row so much I started “Grapes of Wrath”, but never finished it. Never finished

I like “Les Miserables”, but you kinda have to read the abridged version, unless you want to read 50 pages of the history of the sewers of Paris, and that kind of nonsense.

Favorite investing book ever is “Random Walk”.

Agree

Surprised (and glad) that Blink and The Tipping Point were not mentioned.

Hitler’s Mein Kampf was released to the public. Interesting/confusing read

The Cat in the Hat

You realize that Orwell himself was a “left-wing” type?