** "BIAS" is a special feature in my blog where I get to say whatever I want with scant regards for your feelings. I'm not politically correct in this feature, so go ahead, judge me."
In my job, I talk with many young people. I walk away with the grim knowledge that most of them do not have a habit of reading. I'm not just talking about reading textbooks for academic purposes, but also reading for the joy of doing so. From what I observed, girls read more than guys, though it might be mainly fashion magazines or other lighter fair like 8 days etc. I think one of the main contributing reason is that there are many distractions that are far more exciting than just plain reading.
I was just telling one of my students that I had just bought a kindle dx just three weeks ago. He asked me how much it costs and I told him it's a few hundreds. To this, he exclaimed that he would never spend such money on books. I guess that pretty much sums it up about the youth these days. They would rather spend money to engage someone to teach them then to read it up themselves. It's quite horrifying when I heard that most of them will just throw away the manual for any gadgets they bought and just jump straight into it. Perhaps they are so confident of their ability to trial and error any functions that their gadgets possess (they are afterall, the IT generation).
But why are they so disgusted with reading? I've no idea, but I guess it's good for my job. Most of the stuff I teach can be found in the examples given in the textbooks, so I suppose that if they do read it up, I might not be that busy anymore.
To me, reading is the best way to gain the knowledge and experiences of those that came before us. Culture is retained in the literature and passed down from the past to the present. If you would just read, you'll find that you do not have to keep re-inventing the wheel. I remembered when I was learning FA, I had a goal of reading one finance book per week - that makes it 52 books per year. That was back in 2008. I was reading voraciously on accountings, financial statements analysis and those books by guru investors, and I was greedily lapping it all up. It was until I had finished most of the shelves in the library that I slowed down. These days, I am much more selectively in what I read, choosing instead to re-read some of the best books that I had filtered down through the years.
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My gf always wanted shelves of books occupying an entire wall in our home |
Just for the records, here's the books that I devoured from 2007 to 2009. I'll highlight the ones that I would want to re-visit again and again.
Books read in 2007
1. Five point something – Chetan Bhagat
2. How to become stupid – Martin Page
3. The curious incident of the dog in night-time – Mark Haddon
4. The stupidest angel – Christopher Moore
5. The way of the cockroach – Craig Hovey
6. Legally correct fairy tales – David Fisher
7. It’s kind of a funny story – Ned Vizzini
8. Jacob’s ladder – Brian Keaney
9. Politically correct bedtime stories: Modern tales for our life & times – James Finn Garner
10. Cathy’s book – Cathy
11. Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka
12. Label – Louis de Bernieres
13. The successful investor – William J. O’Neil
14. Rich dad poor dad – guide to investing – Robert Kiyosaki
15. Do you want to make money or would you rather fool around – John D Spooner
16. Vault career guide to investment banking
17. Financial Statements - Thomas R. Ittelson
18. The four pillars of investing: lessons for building a winning portfolio – Dr William Bernstein
19. Accounting Demystified: A self teaching guide – Loita A.Hart
20. Five rules for successful stock investing – J Wiley, Joe Mansueto, Pat Dorsey
21. The little book of value investing – Christopher H. Browne
22. The little book that beats the market – Joel Greenblatt
23. The unwritten law of business – J.W. King, revised by James.G.Skakoon
24. Stone age company – Sally Bibb
25. The rules of wealth – Richard Templar
26. The laws of simplicity – John Maeda
27. The 5 keys to value investing - Jean Jacques
Books read in 2008
1. Warren Buffet Speaks - Wit and Wisdom from the World's Greates Investor - Janet Lowe
2. Winning - Jack Welch/Suzy Welch
3. The Dividend rich investor - Joseph Tigue/Joseph Lisanti
4. The little books of common sense investing – John C bogle
5. Everyman and his common stocks – Laurence H. Sloan
6. Investment madness – John R. Nofsinger
7. Lessons from the legends of wall street – Nikki Ross
8. Understanding comics – Scott McCloud
9. Free cash flow and shareholder yield – William Priest/Linsay McClelland
10. The ultimate dividend playbook – Josh Peters
11. The five rules of successful stock investing – Pat Dorsey
12. Why smart people do stupid things with money – Bert Whitehead
13. Building the perfect portfolio – Curtis J. Montgomery
14. A concise guide to macroeconomics – David A. Moss
15. Little black book of connections – Jeffrey Gitomer
16. The little book of value investing – Christopher H. Browne
17. The Tao of warren buffet – Mary buffet
18. Monopoly rules – Millind M. Lee
19. Buffettology – Mary buffet / David Clark
20. Common stocks and uncommon profits – Phil. A. Fisher
21. One up on wall street – Peter Lynch
22. The Warren buffet way – Robert G. Hagstrom
23. Anyway – the paradoxical commandments – Kent M. Keith
24. Cut to the chase – Stuart R. Levine
25. The Intelligent investor – Benjamin Graham
26. The bull hunter – Dan Denning
27. The black swan – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
28. The market guru – John Reese/Todd Glassman
29. Liar’s Poker – Michael Lewis
30. Confessions of a wall street analyst – Dan Reingold
31. The Citibank guide to building personal wealth – Leo Gough
32. The essays of warren E. Buffett – Lawrence A. Cunningham
33. Morningstar guide to mutual funds – Christine Benz
34. Benjamin Graham on value investing – Janet Lowe
35. A random walk down wall street- Burton G. Malkiel
36. Even buffet isn’t perfect – Vahan Janjigian
37. Origins of the Crash – Roger Lowenstein
38. Reminiscences of a stock operator – Edwin Lefevre
39. Killing sacred cows – Garett B. Gunderson
40. The real warren buffet – James O’Loughlin
41. 100 cats who made a difference – Sam Stall
42. The little book that makes you rich – Louis Navellier
43. Debt – Juliane Otterbach
44. Saving – Juliane Otterbach
45. V for Vendetta – Alan Moore, David Lloyd
46. Full of Bull – Stephen T. McClellan
47. This is not a book – Michael Picard
48. My Formula! – Thomas Matthew
49. Value Investing – Sebastian Chong
50. Financial statements for non-financial people – Ron Price
51. A primer on money,banking and gold – Peter L. Bernstein
52. The little book that saves your assets – David M. Darst
53. The Joseph cycle (2004 edition) – Simon Sim
54. Animal Farm – George Orwell
55. I.O.U.S.A – Addison Wiggin, Kate Incontrera, Dorianne Perrucci
Books read in 2009
1. Investing against the tide - Anthony Bolton
2. Pit Bull - Martin Schwartz
3. Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Taleb
4. When genius failed - Roger Lowenstein
5. Real tips, real money - Leong CT/Leong SH/Dr David Tay
6. Candlestick charts - Clive Lambert
7. Sell and sell short - Dr. Alexander Elder
8. Come into my trading room - Dr. Alexander Elder
9. Trading for a living - Dr. Alexander Elder
10. Silver Surfer Requiem
11. Free market madness - Peter A. Ubel
12. Sales Bible - Jeffrey Gitomer
13. Avengers Disassembled - Brian Michael Bendis/David Finch
14. Successful Value Investing in Asia - Tony Measor
15. Where are the customers' yachts? - Fred Schwed, Jr
16. The little book of bull moves in bear markets - Peter D.Schiff
17. Keynes and the Market - Justyn Walsh
18. Warren Buffet and the interpretation of financial statements - Mary Buffet & David Clark
19. The physics of superheroes - James Kakalios
20. Motoring Basics
21. Your money or your life - Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin
22. Bailout - John Waggoner
23. The Millionaire in you - Michael LeBoeuf
24. The 5 lessons a millionaire taught me - Richard Paul Evans
25. How to trade in Stocks - Jesse Livermore (& Richard Smitten)
26. The Wall street Self defense Manual - Henry Blodget
27. Teach yourself to Live - C.G.L. Du Cann
28. How to become a property millionaire - Azizi Ali
29. Cats - the book of the musical - Harvest books
30. The little book that builds wealth - Pat Dorsey
31. Success in the education business - Vincent A. Gabriel
So there!
With my Amazon Kindle, I'll be reading much more fiction and classics that I had always wanted to read, but had difficulty finding in the library. These days, it's hard to find new knowledge in the financial books that I read. After all, there's only so much things to learn about finance. Most of the books will be just talking about the same ideas but phrased in different forms.