List of selected personal finance, economics and related books

Each book has a brief description that were either written from scratch, derived from Amazon.com descriptions or a Morningstar.com book review list.

The books are sorted by primary topic, although there is considerable overlap of the topics in many of the books in the following lists. Some of the topics might at first seem off topic (e.g., SRI investing, behavioral finance, globalization, economics, public policy, the environment and energy sources, and risk of rare events), however they impact your personal finance in the long term and need to be taken into account.

The books are not sorted within each of the primary topic lists - they are generally listed as they occurred to me. These lists should be better organized by topic or sub-topics and will be reorganized from time to time. Some of the books have come out in revised editions, so getting the latest edition might be a good idea.

For novice investors who want just get started learning the basics, books from topic 2. Portfolio design and asset allocation (introductory), would be of primary interest. These include defining terms such as portfolio, asset and asset allocation and go on from there.

Notation

• Books I liked and would generally recommend are marked with a '$'.
• Books more useful for more advanced readers are marked with a '#'.
• Books with no '$' mark are still useful and included for that reason.

There are many other sources of personal finance information on the Internet and elsewhere, but they will not be addressed here. This is strictly a book list.

The primary topics lists

1. Risk in investing -
one needs to understand risk in order to invest intelligently. These books discuss the definition(s) and ways to think about risk.

2. Portfolio design and asset allocation (introductory) -
how to actually build an investment portfolio of stocks and bonds.

2.1 Portfolio design and asset allocation (more advanced) -
covers more advance topics or treatments of portfolio construction.

3. Bonds (as subset of a portfolio) -
demystifies bonds used as part of an investment portfolio.

4. Value investing -
value investing methodology as in "buy low, sell high".

5. Behavioral finance -
how human behavior influences our investing, and other, decisions.

5.1 Globalization, economics and public policy -
the effects and history of globalization, economics, and public policy.

6. Styles of some successful investment managers -
the philosophies of some successful investment mangagers.

7. Stock Investing -
discusses some of the details of fundamental analysis of stock investing.

8. Fractals, finance and fat-tail event risk -
how the simple Gaussian models commonly used by many in finance are wrong. Although seemingly off topic, it is directly related to portfolio risk.

9. Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) and economies -
discusses how investing for returns as well as our values can be achieved.

10. Retirement income distribution -
describes the second part of investing, distributing income safely during retirement.

$ When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change by Mohamed El-Erian (2008) [From Amazon.com] "When Markets Collide is a timely alert to the fundamental changes taking place in today's global economic and financial systems--and a call to action for investors who may fall victim to misinterpreting important signals. While some have tended to view asset class mispricings as mere 'noise,' this compelling book shows why they are important signals of opportunities and risks that will shape the market for years to come. One of today's most respected names in finance, Mohamed El-Erian puts recent events in their proper context, giving you the tools that can help you interpret the markets, benefit from global economic change, and navigate the risks."

$ Capital Ideas Evolving by Peter L. Bernstein (2007)is the updated sequel to Bernstein's classic 1992 work "Capital Ideas" that documented the current best thinking on MPT, CAPM, and other academic research dealing with "Beta". The new book adds new academic insights into additional areas including behavioral economics, rethinking some of the simplifying assumptions of these older models, and other areas dealing with "Alpha".

$ Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein (1998) [From Amazon.com] "Risk management, which assumes that future risks can be understood, measured and to some extent predicted, is the focus of this solid, thoroughgoing history. Probability theory, pioneered by 17th-century French mathematicians Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat, has made possible the design of great bridges, electric power utilities and insurance policies. The statistical sampling methods invented by dour Swiss scientist Jacob Bernoulli undergird diverse activities such as the testing of new drugs, stock-picking and wine tasting. Bernstein (Capital Ideas) animates his narrative with a colorful cast of risk-analyzers, including gambling addict Girolamo Cardano, 16th-century Italian physician to the Pope; and John Maynard Keynes, whose concerns over economic uncertainty compelled him to recommend an active, interventionist role for government. Bernstein also traces the development of business forecasting, game theory, insurance and derivatives, and surveys recent advances in risk forecasting made possible through chaos theory and by the development of neural networks."

$ Winning the Loser's Game by Charles D. Ellis (2002) is another good review of the story of risk and the investment industry, why market timing is futal in the long run, why indexing is a winner's game.

$ More than You Know by Michael Mauboussin (updated Sept. 2007) is the Legg Mason chief investment strategist. The book is an great collection of wide-ranging short pieces discussing risk from various points of view including behavioral finance.

$ Hedgehogging by Barton Biggs (2006) discusses the ups and (many) downs and risks of the hedge fund industry and investing in general.

$ The New Financial Order: Risk in the 21st century by Robert J. Shiller (2004) discusses risk in various asset classes and possible ways of hedging some of that risk.

A Mathematician Plays The Stock Market by John Allen Paulos (2004) describes how even mathematicians can get it wrong. (However, Taleb, Mauboussin, Mandelbrot, and many others got it right since the market has unexpected fat tail (distribution) events - i.e., market crashes as well as jumps!).

$ Capital Ideas: The Improbable Origins of Modern Wall Street by Peter L. Bernstein (1993) documents (at that time) the current best thinking on MPT, CAPM, and other academic research on investing.

$ Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street by William Poundstone (2006) (From Amazon review) "Fortune's Formula is a fascinating study of the connections between such seemingly unrelated topics as gambling, information theory, stock investing, and applied mathematics. The story involves the stunning brainpower of men such as MIT professor Claude Shannon, who single-handedly invented information theory, the science behind the Internet and all digital media; Ed Thorpe; and John Kelly of Bell Laboratories, who developed the 'Kelly criterion,' a now-legendary investment strategy for maximizing growth while controlling risk."

Note: many of the other books mentioned in these lists also touch on the risk sub topics.

$ The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns by John C. Bogle (2007) makes a nice non-technical case for index investing. Bogle started Vanguard.

$ A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel (9th edition 2007) is a classic on markets and their behavior for both the novice and more advanced reader. Malkiel is finance professor and was on Vanguard board for many years. A must read.

$ The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You'll Ever Need: The Way Smart Money Invests Today by Larry E. Swedroe (2004) is a nice updated description of asset allocation with index funds and pitfalls to avoid.

$ What Wall Street Doesn't Want You to Know: How You Can Build Real Wealth Investing in Index Funds by Larry E. Swedroe (2004) is a nice description of asset allocation with index funds and pitfalls to avoid.

$ The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio by William J. Bernstein (2002) is an attempt to make his previous works on asset allocation more accessible. He has a Web site http://efficientfrontier.com/.

$ Wise Investing Made Simple: Larry Swedroe's Tales to Enrich Your Future by Larry Swedroe (2007) discusses in a sports analogy way the common mistakes investors make in investing. Although useful, this book is really meant to accompany other books (by that author and others) to reinforce why they recommend simple index investing as 'winning the loser's game'.

$ Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor by John C. Bogle (2000) makes the case for index investing and asset allocation.

$ The Informed Investor: A Hype-Free Guide to Constructing a Sound Financial Portfolio by Frank Armstrong III (2002) summarizes the essentials of long-term investing using index-funds in a readable way. He has a Web site http://www.investorsolutions.com/ with monthly commentaries.

$ The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing by Taylor Larimore, Mel Lindauer, and Michael LeBoeuf (2006) is a easy to read primer on asset allocation and building a maintaining your own investment portfolio based on low cost index funds. The Bogleheads is named after John Bogle and is called the "Vanguard Diehards" on the http://morningstar.com/ discussion boards. They have a parallel web site http://www.diehards.org/ which is a very active blog.

$ Straight Talk on Investing: What You Need to Know by Jack Brennan (2002) summarizes the essentials of investment decisions in a readable way.

$ You Can Do It!: The Boomer's Guide to a Great Retirement by Jonathan Pond (2007) summarizes the essentials of investing in a readable way.

$ Earn More (Sleep Better): The Index Fund Solution by Richard Evans and Burton Malkiel (1999) summarizes the essentials of index-fund investing in a readable way.

$# The Intelligent Asset Allocator: How to Build Your Portfolio to Maximize Returns and Minimize Risk by William Bernstein (2000) is an excellent detailed technical book on asset allocation and indexing. He has a Web site http://efficientfrontier.com/ that has an archive of very insightful commentaries.

$# Mastering the Art of Asset Allocation - Comprehensive approaches to managing risk and optimizing returns by David Darst (2007). This goes into the nitty gritty of asset allocation for the dedicated investor.

$# Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment by David Swensen (2005) is a good way to look at asset allocation with indexing with some good insights into uncompensated risk of many popular fixed asset classes.

$# Pioneering Portfolio Management: An Unconventional Approach to Institutional Investment by David Swensen (2000) is an earlier book that documents his approach for managing endowment funds (he runs Yale's endowment fund).

$# Active Index Investing by Steven A. Shoenfeld (2004) is an excellent compendium of papers on indexing by the major proponents of the field.

$# Morningstar Guide to Mutual Funds: Five-Star Strategies for Success by Christine Benz (2005) discusses developing a personal portfolio of stock and bond funds, index funds, minimizing costs, style and risk. The Web site is http://www.morningstar.com/.

$# Questions Great Financial Advisors Ask... and Investors Need to Know by Alan Parisse and David Richman (2006) excellent book on how to deal with clients and how to get clients to help themselves by revealing how they feel about money issues which is critical before the advisor can help them.

$# From Wall Street to the Great Wall: How Investors Can Profit from China's Booming Economy by Burton G. Malkiel, Patricia A. Taylor, Jianping Mei, Rui Yang (2007) describes the history and the new role China plays in the global economy with expected 7% to 9% GDP growth/year - more than most of the rest of the world. How China and the rest of theworld invests in China, and how small investors can partake via the various types of investment vehicles available.

$# A Bull in China: Investing Profitably in the World's Greatest Market by Jim Rogers (2007)describes the Chinese economy and the related players from an investors perspective. He describes both the possibilites as well as the problems.

$# The ETF Book: All You Need to Know About Exchange-Traded Funds by Rick Ferri (2007) describes the history and types of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) available to investors and the advantages and disadvantages of using ETFs compared to open-ended mutual funds. This goes extensively into the workings of ETFs for those who are considering or use ETFs in their portfolio.

$ The Only Guide to a Winning Bond Strategy You'll Ever Need: The Way Smart Money Preserves Wealth Today by Larry Swedroe and Joseph Hempen (2006) is a nice summary of various bond fixed asset classes using individual and bond funds. Thou's book is more complete, but this has more information on constructing a bond portfolio and integrating it with the rest of your equity (stock) portfolio.

$# The Bond Book: Everything Investors Need to Know About Treasuries, Municipals, GNMAs, Corporates, Zeros, Bond Funds, Money Market Funds, and More by Annette Thau (2000) is a good reference book on fixed investments.

$ The Only Guide to Alternative Investments You'll Ever Need: The Good, the Flawed, the Bad, and the Ugly by Larry Swedroe and Jared Kizer (2008) [From Amazon.com] "In times of uncertainty, investors look for ways to protect their principal and still earn a good return. Financial advisers Larry Swedroe and Jared Kizer say the best approach is to add carefully chosen alternative investments to traditional stock and bond portfolios. In this, the third book in the popular The Only Guide Youll Ever Need series, the authors detail twenty alternative investments, explaining which to consider seriously and which to avoid entirely. They make specific recommendations about the best ways to access each investment, address tax and liquidity issues, and create an allocation and implementation strategy."

Note: many of the other books mentioned in these lists also touch on these sub topics.

$ The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel (Revised Edition) by Benjamin Graham and Jason Zweig (2003). This edition of Graham's classic book is brought up to date by Zweig's excellent footnotes discussing it in the modern context.

$ The Little Book of Value Investing by Christopher Browne (2006) goes into what great value investors (Graham, Buffet, Dodge, Tweedy, etc.) do. Browne is with Tweedy Browne funds which like Warren Buffet has interesting yearly commentaries on their http://www.tweedybrown.com/ web site. Buffet’s are on http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html Web site.

# Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings by Philip A. Fisher and Kenneth L. Fisher (2003) discusses P. A. Fisher's value investing philosophy.

$ Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein (2008) [A few of the reviews from Amazon.com] 1) "How often do you read a book that is both important and amusing, both practical and deep? This gem of a book resents the best idea that has come out of behavioral economics. It is a must-read for anyone who wants to see both our minds and our society working better. It will improve your decisions and it will make the world a better place. -Daniel Kahneman, Princeton University, Nobel Laureate in Economics."; 2) "This book is terrific. It will change the way you think, not only about the world around you and some of its bigger problems, but also about yourself. -Michael Lewis, author of The Blind Side: Evvolution of a Game and Liar's Poker."; 3) "I love this book. It is one of the few books I've read recently that fundamentally changes the way I think about the world. Just as surprising, it is fun to read, drawing on examples as far afield as urinals, 401(k) plans, organ donations, and marriage. Academics aren''t supposed to be able to write this well. -Steven Levitt, Alvin Baum Professor of Economics, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and co-author of Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything."

$ Mr. Market Miscalculates: The Bubble Years and Beyond by James Grant (2008) [From Amazon.com] Collected from speeches and editorials by Grant, the editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, these essays are remarkable for their prescience: two years before subprime mortgages collapsed, the author described them as not one borrower left behind and when other analysts were worried about the effect of a Fed interest rate increase, he foresaw that the risk to house prices lies not with interest rates but with lending standards. Other chapters attack bubbles in stocks and the dollar with erudition and wit (Economics, mistaking itself for physics, is wont to turn up its nose at history, but the past has much to teach; as dress on Wall Street has become more casual, so have the monetary arrangements... the gold standard and swallowtail coats have given way to Greenspan and open-neck shirts). It's hard to imagine reading any other investment newsletter even a week after publication. Grant's is the exception; it paints on a larger canvas and is infused with the author's generous spirit and rich sense of humor."

$ The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics by Michael Shermer (2007) "Shermer (The Science of Good and Evil), columnist for Scientific American and publisher of Skeptic magazine, provides an in-depth examination of evolutionary economics. Using fascinating examples—from monkeys that balk at unfair distribution of rewards after completing a task to humans who feel cheated when offered $10 of free money if a partner is given $90—Shermer explores the evolutionary roots of our sense of fairness and justice, and shows how this rationale extends to the market. Drawing upon his expertise as a scientist and the works of noted economists, Shermer argues convincingly that human beings are not exclusively self-centered, the market itself is moral, and modern economies are founded on our virtuous nature. He explores how we mind our money, the value of virtue, why money can't buy happiness and whether we are really free to make choices. Though dense in places, this book offers much insight into human behavior and rationales regarding money and fairness and will be of interest to serious readers of science or business." [Amazon].

$ Why Smart People Make Dumb Money Mistakes by Gary Belsky and Thomas Gilovich (2000) is a good entry-level book on behavioral finance. People are wired in non-intuitive ways that cause us to make decisions that are out of whack with what they rationally "should" do. Knowing what those flaws are, may help in consciously trying to avoid them when investing.

$ Your Money and Your Brain: How the New Science of Neuroeconomics Can Help Make You Rich by Jason Zweig (2007) is a fascinating different financial type of book about investing and risk based on a huge amount of research done on neuroeconomics. Another, subtitle might be to know thyself (or at least what traps we still fall into as mammals recently removed from the necessity of using primative survival skills, and what we might possibly do something about).

$ Going Broke: Why Americans Can't Hold On To Their Money by Stuart Vyse (2008) (from Amazon.comreview by Howard Rachlin, PhD, Psych. Dept, SUNY Stony Brook) "In this lucidly-written and very timely book, Vyse has brought recent empirical research by psychologists and economists to bear on the question of why so many people are currently getting themselves into unmanageable debt. Vyse makes astute suggestions as to what we can do individually and collectively to reverse this frightening situation. I highly recommend the book to anyone who is currently in such straits or who is in danger of getting into them -- and, as Vyse makes clear, that could be any of us."

Note: many of the other books mentioned in these lists also touch on these sub topics.

$ The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too by James K. Galbraith (2008) [from Amazon.com description] "The cult of the free market has dominated economic policy-talk since the Reagan revolution of nearly thirty years ago. Tax cuts and small government, monetarism, balanced budgets, deregulation, and free trade are the core elements of this dogma, a dogma so successful that even many liberals accept it. But a funny thing happened on the bridge to the twenty-first century. While liberals continue to bow before the free-market altar, conservatives in the style of George W. Bush have abandoned it altogether. That is why principled conservatives -- the Reagan true believers -- long ago abandoned Bush. Enter James K. Galbraith, the iconoclastic economist. In this riveting book, Galbraith first dissects the stale remains of Reaganism and shows how Bush and company had no choice except to dump them into the trash. He then explores the true nature of the Bush regime: a 'corporate republic,' bringing the methods and mentality of big business to public life; a coalition of lobbies, doing the bidding of clients in the oil, mining, military, pharmaceutical, agribusiness, insurance, and media industries; and a predator state, intent not on reducing government but rather on diverting public cash into private hands. In plain English, the Republican Party has been hijacked by political leaders who long since stopped caring if reality conformed to their message. Galbraith follows with an impertinent question: if conservatives no longer take free markets seriously, why should liberals? Why keep liberal thought in the straitjacket of pay-as-you-go, of assigning inflation control to the Federal Reserve, of attempting to 'make markets work'? Why not build a new economic policy based on what is really happening in this country? The real economy is not a free-market economy. It is a complex combination of private and public institutions, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, higher education, the housing finance system, and a vast federal research establishment. The real problems and challenges -- inequality, climate change, the infrastructure deficit, the subprime crisis, and the future of the dollar -- are problems that cannot be solved by incantations about the market. They will be solved only with planning, with standards and other policies that transcend and even transform markets. A timely, provocative work whose message will endure beyond this election season, The Predator State will appeal to the broad audience of thoughtful Americans who wish to understand the forces at work in our economy and culture and who seek to live in a nation that is both prosperous and progressive."

$ The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson (2008) discusses the history of money and finance from 1,000 B.C. through the bubbles and crises of today with insights into some of the mechanisms and human psychologies that drive them.

$ Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution - and How It Can Renew America Thomas L. Friedman (2008) (review from Amazon.com) "Thomas L. Friedman’s phenomenal number-one bestseller The World Is Flat has helped millions of readers to see the world in a new way. In his brilliant, essential new book, Friedman takes a fresh and provocative look at two of the biggest challenges we face today: America’s surprising loss of focus and national purpose since 9/11; and the global environmental crisis, which is affecting everything from food to fuel to forests. In this groundbreaking account of where we stand now, he shows us how the solutions to these two big problems are linked--how we can restore the world and revive America at the same time. Friedman explains how global warming, rapidly growing populations, and the astonishing expansion of the world’s middle class through globalization have produced a planet that is “hot, flat, and crowded.” Already the earth is being affected in ways that threaten to make it dangerously unstable. In just a few years, it will be too late to fix things--unless the United States steps up now and takes the lead in a worldwide effort to replace our wasteful, inefficient energy practices with a strategy for clean energy, energy efficiency, and conservation that Friedman calls Code Green. ..."

$ The Post-American World Fareed Zakaria (2008) (review from Amazon.com) "When a book proclaims that it is not about the decline of America but the rise of everyone else, readers might expect another diatribe about our dismal post-9/11 world. They are in for a pleasant surprise as Newsweek editor and popular pundit Zakaria (The Future of Freedom) delivers a stimulating, largely optimistic forecast of where the 21st century is heading. We are living in a peaceful era, he maintains; world violence peaked around 1990 and has plummeted to a record low. Burgeoning prosperity has spread to the developing world, raising standards of living in Brazil, India, China and Indonesia. Twenty years ago China discarded Soviet economics but not its politics, leading to a wildly effective, top-down, scorched-earth boom. Its political antithesis, India, also prospers while remaining a chaotic, inefficient democracy, as Indian elected officials are (generally) loathe to use the brutally efficient tactics that are the staple of Chinese governance. Paradoxically, India's greatest asset is its relative stability in the region; its officials take an unruly population for granted, while dissent produces paranoia in Chinese leaders. Zakaria predicts that despite its record of recent blunders at home and abroad, America will stay strong, buoyed by a stellar educational system and the influx of young immigrants, who give the U.S. a more youthful demographic than Europe and much of Asia whose workers support an increasing population of unproductive elderly. A lucid, thought-provoking appraisal of world affairs, this book will engage readers on both sides of the political spectrum."

$ A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World by William J. Bernstein (2008) "Adam Smith wrote that man has an intrinsic “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.” But how did trade evolve to the point where we don’t think twice about biting into an apple from the other side of the world? In this sweeping narrative history of world trade, William J. Bernstein tells the extraordinary story of global commerce from its prehistoric origins to the myriad controversies surrounding it today. He transports readers from ancient sailing ships that brought the silk trade from China to Rome in the second century to the rise and fall of the Portuguese monopoly in spices in the sixteenth; from the American trade battles of the early twentieth century to the modern era of televisions from Taiwan, lettuce from Mexico, and T-shirts from China. Lively, authoritative, and astonishing in scope, A Splendid Exchange is a riveting narrative that views trade and globalization not in political terms, but rather as an evolutionary process as old as war and religion--a historical constant--that will continue to foster the growth of intellectual capital, shrink the world, and propel the trajectory of the human species. " [from Amazon]

$ The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created by William J. Bernstein (2004) "a vital, living text-a cogent, timely journey through the economic history of the modern world. He identifies institutions ("the framework within which human beings think, interact and carry on business") as the engines of prosperity. Boiled down to four (property rights, the scientific method, capital markets and communications), these institutions come from ideas and practices that bubbled forth over the course of hundreds of years." [Amazon]

$ Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power by by John Steele Gordon (2005) a financial historian. "The word 'epic' in the subtitle is a tip-off that instead of a critical history of the American economy, this book is a celebration of it. Nothing wrong with that, especially when the tale's told breezily and accurately. In fact, Gordon (The Scarlet Woman of Wall Street) notes the many stumbles and the frequent foolishness and corruption that attended the nation's rise as an economic powerhouse." [Amazon]

$ The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein (2007) (from Amazon.com by Kim Hughes) 'Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine advances a truly unnerving argument: historically, while people were reeling from natural disasters, wars and economic upheavals, savvy politicians and industry leaders nefariously implemented policies that would never have passed during less muddled times. As Klein demonstrates, this reprehensible game of bait-and-switch isn't just some relic from the bad old days. It's alive and well in contemporary society, and coming soon to a disaster area near you. "At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq" civil war, a new law is unveiled that will allow Shell and BP to claim the country's vast oil reserves… Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly outsources the running of the "War on Terror" to Halliburton and Blackwater… After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts… New Orleans residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be re-opened." Klein not only kicks butt, she names names, notably economist Milton Friedman and his radical Chicago School of the 1950s and 60s which she notes "produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today." Stand up and take a bow, Donald Rumsfeld. There's little doubt Klein's book--which arrived to enormous attention and fanfare thanks to her previous missive, the best-selling No Logo, will stir the ire of the right and corporate America. It's also true that Klein's assertions are coherent, comprehensively researched and footnoted, and she makes a very credible case. Even if the world isn't going to hell in a hand-basket just yet, it's nice to know a sharp customer like Klein is bearing witness to the backroom machinations of government and industry in times of turmoil."

$ Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage by Kenneth S. Deffeyes (2001) makes the unequivocal case for our having reached peak oil extraction (first predicted by Hubbert) and the subsequent problems and possible decline of economic dependence on non-renewable oil. There are many other books since then on the economic consequences and some solutions to peak oil (see http://www.hubbertpeak.com/).

$ Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond (2005) discusses various examples of human economic and social collapse and even extinction of civilizations over many thousands of years. "He explores patterns of population growth, overfarming, overgrazing and overhunting, often abetted by drought, cold, rigid social mores and warfare, that lead inexorably to vicious circles of deforestation, erosion and starvation prompted by the disappearance of plant and animal food sources. Extending his treatment to contemporary environmental trouble spots, from Montana to China to Australia, he finds today's global, technologically advanced civilization very far from solving the problems that plagued primitive, isolated communities in the remote past." [Amazon]

$ Making Globalization Work by Joseph E. Stiglitz (2006) "focuses on policies that truly work, offering fresh new thinking about the questions that shape the globalization debate, including a plan to restructure a global financial system made unstable by America's debt, ideas for how countries can grow without degrading the environment, a framework for free and fair global trade, and much more. Throughout, Stiglitz reveals that economic globalization continues to outpace both the political structures and the moral sensitivity required to ensure a just and sustainable world. And he makes plain the real work that all nations must undertake to realize that goal." [Amazon]

$ The Pro-Growth Progressive: An Economic Strategy for Shared Prosperity by Gene Sperling (2005) discusses how fairer pro-growth corrections to the inevitable and valuable globalization policies will keep the economy going and minimize many of the short-term problems occuring with particular industrices (i.e., offshoring, job stress, Social Security, etc).

$ Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life by Robert Reich (2007) [From Amazon.com]"From Publishers Weekly. In this compelling and important analysis of the triumph of capitalism and the decline of democracy, former labor secretary Reich urges us to rebalance the roles of business and government. Power, he writes, has shifted away from us in our capacities as citizens and toward us as consumers and investors. While praising the spread of global capitalism, he laments that supercapitalism has brought with it alienation from politics and community. The solution: to separate capitalism from democracy, and guard the border between them. Plainspoken and forceful, if somewhat repetitious, the book urges new and strengthened laws and regulations to restore authority to the citizens in us. Reich's proposals are anything but knee-jerk liberal: he calls for abolishing the corporate income tax and labels the corporate social responsibility movement distracting and even counterproductive. As in 2004's Reason, Reich exhibits perhaps too much confidence in Americans' ability to think and act in their own best interests. But he refuses to shift blame for corporations' dominance to the usual suspects, instead pointing a finger at consumers like you and me who want better deals, and from investors like us who want better returns, he writes. Provocatively argued, this book could help begin a necessary national conversation. (Sept. 6) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved." His interview on NPR may be heard at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14321590. His web site is http://www.robertreich.org/

$ Oil on the Brain: Adventures from the Pump to the Pipeline by by Lisa Margonelli (2007) (Amazon) "From Publishers Weekly. In the last few years, just about everyone has had "oil on the brain" at some point, as record gas prices and a disastrous war have called our dependency into question. But though the U.S. burns 10,000 gallons of gasoline a second, few of us know how oil is created and drilled, how gas stations compete or what actually goes on in a refinery—let alone what happens in the mysterious Strategic Petroleum Reserve, where the U.S. government stores roughly 700 million barrels of oil in underground salt caverns on the Gulf Coast of Texas. Margonelli answers these questions and more, before examining some of the key patches in the oil industry's geopolitical quilt: source countries like Chad, where promises of real local growth fall hopelessly short, or China, which, "by 2025, perhaps, will import as much crude oil as the U.S. does now." Writing in a witty, first-person voice, Margonelli criticizes corruption in places like Nigeria, while expressing her 'love of hydrocarbons' for the unlikeliness of their formation and the ingenuity required to extricate them. This is an original, open-minded look at a subject about which everyone has an opinion".

$ Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future by Jeff Goodell (2007) (Amazon) "From Publishers Weekly. After a generation out of the spotlight, coal has reasserted its centrality: the United States 'burn[s] more than a billion tons' per year, and since 9/11 and the Iraq war, independence from foreign oil has become positively patriotic. Rolling Stone contributing editor Goodell's last book, the bestselling Our Story, was about a mine accident, which clearly made a deep impression on him. Our reliance on coal—the unspoken foundation of our "information" economy—has, Goodell says, led to an "empire of denial" that blocks us from the investments necessary to find alternative energy sources that could eventually save us from fossil fuel. Goodell's description of the mining-related deaths, the widespread health consequences of burning coal and the impact on our planet's increasingly fragile ecosystem make for compelling reading, but such commonplace facts are not what lift this book out of the ordinary. That distinction belongs to Goodell's fieldwork, which takes him to Atlanta, West Virginia, Wyoming, China and beyond—though he also has a fine grasp of the less tangible niceties of the industry. Goodell understands how mines, corporate boardrooms, commodity markets and legislative chambers interrelate to induce a national inertia. Goodell has a talent for pithy argument—and the book fairly crackles with informed conviction".

$ POP! Why Bubbles are Great For the Economy by Daniel Gross (2007) suggests that financial bubbles encourages creative destruction that can bring on an even greater wave of economic prosperity.

$ Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams (2007) discusses new economic models of collaboration in a global market.

$ Open Business Models: How to thrive in the New Innovation Landscape by Henry Chesbrough (2006) discusses new open business models in the new global marketplace.

$ The Battle for Social Security: From FDR's Vision to Bush's Gamble by Nancy Altman (2005) tells the story of the creation and modification of Social Security over the years and the current political issues. She also proposes a a reasonable cost-effective solution to strengthening it without desstroying it through private accounts.

$ Optimizing Luck: What the Passion to Succeed in Space Can Teach Business Leaders on Earth by Thomas Meylan, Terry Teays (2007) describes what worked at a very successful project at NASA using collaborative work methods and suggests the key factors that could be used in other projects.

$ Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell (2008) [From Amazon.com] "Now that he's gotten us talking about the viral life of ideas and the power of gut reactions, Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the 'self-made man,' he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: 'they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.'"

$ A Second Opinion: Rescuing America's Health Care by Arnold Relman, M.D. (2007) describes the history of the current mess that the U.S. health care system is because of the shift of patient driven to an increasingly unsustainable profit-driven commercialization of health insurers, pharmaceutical industry, and doctor owned private hospitals. Dr. Relman, brings extensive experience from medical school practice, Nat. Acad. Sci. Institute of Medicine, editor of JAMA, and more. He proposes a plan for universal coverage serving patients over profit.

$ The Secret History of the War On Cancer by Devra Davis (2007) [From Amazon.com description] "From the National Book Award finalist, author of When Smoke Ran Like Water, a searing, haunting and deeply personal account of the War on Cancer. The War on Cancer set out to find, treat, and cure a disease. Left untouched were many of the things known to cause cancer, including tobacco, the workplace, radiation, or the global environment. Proof of how the world in which we live and work affects whether we get cancer was either overlooked or suppressed. This has been no accident. The War on Cancer was run by leaders of industries that made cancer-causing products, and sometimes also profited from drugs and technologies for finding and treating the disease. Filled with compelling personalities and never-before-revealed information, The Secret History of the War on Cancer shows how we began fighting the wrong war, with the wrong weapons, against the wrong enemies--a legacy that persists to this day. This is the gripping story of a major public health effort diverted and distorted for private gain. A portion of the profits from this book will go to support research on cancer prevention. Devra Davis, Ph.D., M.P.H., is the Director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and Professor of Epidemiology, Graduate School of Public Health. She was appointed by President Clinton to the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board in 1994 and also served as Scholar in Residence at the National Academy of Science."

$ The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom by Yochai Benkler (2007) [From Amazon.com description] "In this thick academic book, Yale law professor Benkler offers a comprehensive catalog of flashpoints in the conflict between old and new information creators. In Benkler's view, the new "networked information economy" allows individuals and groups to be more productive than profit-seeking ventures. New types of collaboration, such as Wikipedia or SETI@Home, "offer defined improvements in autonomy, democratic discourse, cultural creation, and justice"-as long as government regulation aimed at protecting old-school information monoliths (such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) doesn't succeed. Non-market innovation is a good thing in itself and doesn't even have to threaten entrenched interests, Benkler argues; rather, "social production" can use resources that the industrial information economy leaves behind. Where Benkler excels is in bringing together disparate strands of the new information economy, from the democratization of the newsmedia via blogs to the online effort publicizing weaknesses in Diebold voting machines. Though Benkler doesn't really present any new ideas here, and sometimes draws simplistic distinctions, his defense of the Internet's power to enrich people's lives is often stirring." He gave a recent talk at TED summarizing many of these ideas ( http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/247). In addition, you can download the book for free at his web site (http://benkler.org/).

$ The Real Price of Everything: Rediscovering the Six Classics of Economics by Michael Lewis (Ed) (2007) [From Amazon.com description] "In his New York Times bestsellers Liar’s Poker and Moneyball, Michael Lewis gave us an unprecedented look at what goes on behind the scenes on Wall Street. Now he takes us back across the centuries to explore the four classics that created and defined not just Wall Street, but the entire economic system we live under today. Brought together with Lewis’s illuminating editorial commentary, they form an essential reference for any student of economics—in fact, for anyone who wants to understand the market forces and government policies that have shaped our world, and will continue to shape our future. Includes: 1776: The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith; 1798: An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus; 1817: Principles of Political Economy and Taxation by David Ricardo; 1899: The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions by Thorstein Veblen; 1936: The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money by John Maynard Keynes."

$ Statecraft: And How to Restore America's Standing in the World by Dennis Ross (2007) is really a book is about mediation and negotiation, which takes human behavior of opposing groups into account during negotiations. "Ross, the Clinton administration's Middle East envoy (The Missing Peace) makes the seemingly dreary, opaque processes of international diplomacy as coherent, absorbing and occasionally dramatic as a procedural thriller. He conceives of statecraft as a subtle orchestration of foreign policy 'assets,' including intelligence and analysis, diplomacy, sanctions, economic aid and military pressure. Most of all, it requires negotiations: the book's middle section is a lengthy tutorial on the nuts and bolts of epic negotiating, Ross's forte, complete with tips on how and when to stage angry outbursts at the conference table. The author illustrates with case studies of foreign policy triumphs and disasters (many of which he had a hand in), from German reunification to the war in Iraq. The book is an avowedly 'neo-liberal' rebuke of Bush's unilateralist, 'faith-based' foreign policy blundering. Indeed, with its call for virtuoso state craftsmanship and its detailed proposals on everything from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or Iranian nuclear ambitions to relations with China, it could well be Ross's application for the 2009 secretary of state opening. If so, it's an impressive one, full of canny, judicious insights into the making of foreign policy." [From Amazon.com]

Note: many of the other books mentioned in these lists also touch on these sub topics.

$ Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Road Trip by Jim Rogers (2003) is another fascinating story of his 1999 investing trip around the world by with a BMW and special trailer. Again he analyzes markets as he goes and has many thoughts on commodities, China, and many other global factors.

$ Investment Biker: Around the World with Jim Rogers by Jim Rogers (2003) "This is the fascinating story of his 1990 investing trip around the world by motorcycle, with many tidbits of hard-headed advice for investing in foreign markets." [Amazon]

$ Passport to Profits: Why the Next Investment Windfalls Will Be Found Abroad and How to Grab Your Share by Mark Mobius and Stephen Fenichell (2000) is a personal tour of foreign markets and how he analyzes their potential.

$ A Zebra In Lion Country: Ralph Wanger's Investment Survival Guide by Ralph Wanger and Everett Mattlin (1997) he explains his methods for investing in quality small cap growth stocks at a reasonable price.

$ The Bond King: Investment Secrets from PIMCO's Bill Gross by Timothy Middleton and Peter L. Bernstein (2006) discusses Gross's successful bond investment philosophy.

$ The Only Three Questions That Count: Investing by Knowing What Others Don't by Kenneth L. Fisher, Jennifer Chou, Lara Hoffmans (2007) discusses Fisher's unorthodox investment philosophy, although mixed with his opinionated political outlook.

$ The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics by Jonathan Chait (2007) (Review from Amazon.com) "The author, a senior editor at the New Republic, is best known for declaring I hate President George W. Bush in 2003. This book traces the roots of his dislike back 30 years, when supply-side economics took over the Republican Party and made cutting taxes the GOP answer to all political and economic questions. American politics has been hijacked by a tiny coterie of right-wing economic extremists, Chait declares, some of them ideological zealots, others merely greedy, a few of them possibly insane. To which he adds, the Republicans' success at defeating the democratic process explains why it has been able to enact its agenda despite a lack of popular support. The rhetoric is inflammatory, but the case is laid out with clarity. Chait claims that traditional Republicans, religious people and social, fiscal and foreign policy conservatives have been cheated as much as liberals, and that unparalleled corruption and ruthless cynicism in Washington and the timidity of nonpartisan media allow the minority to rule. His analysis should appeal to anyone interested in politics, though many may find the style too irritating to endure."

Note: many of the other books mentioned in these lists also touch on these sub topics.

$# Stocks for the Long Run by Jeremy Seigel (4th edition, 2007) is a good overview of the stock market asset class with new research of long term returns, although with a bullish orientation.

$# The Future for Investors: Why the Tried and the True Triumph Over the Bold and the New by Jeremy J. Siegel (2005) discusses shifts in markets and hedging strategies using stocks.

$# The Five Rules for Successful Stock Investing by Pat Dorsey (2004) is an overview of stock fundamental analysis covering reading financial statements, finding great companies, analyzing different sectors emphasizing the analysis of economic moats.

$# Investments by Zvi Bodie, Alex Kane, and Alan Marcus (revised 2006) [from Amazon.com] "is the leading textbook for the graduate/MBA investments market. It is recognized as the best blend of practical and theoretical coverage, while maintaining an appropriate rigor and clear writing style. Its unifying theme is that security markets are nearly efficient, meaning that most securities are usually priced appropriately given their risk and return attributes. The text places greater emphasis on asset allocation, and offers a much broader and deeper treatment of futures, options, and other derivative security markets than most investment texts."

$# The (Mis) Behavior of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin And Reward by Benoit Mandelbrot and Richard Hudson (2006) is an excellent discussion of how markets are really not Gaussian. This can be read along with Taleb's books. It is more an analysis of market behavior, not about investing per-se. (See Wikipedia entry on Mandelbrot).

$ The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2007) is more detailed discussion of these unpredictable (very non-Gaussian!) events. The philosophy applies to much of non-financial areas as well. A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. His Web site http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/ contains "interesting" interviews and is a great read.

$ Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb (2005) is more directly concerned about finance than The Black Swan, but is no less thought-provoking than Mandelbrot's mis-behavior book. Taleb explores how we confuse luck with skill, and the importance of trying to figure out which is which.

# Fractals and Scaling In Finance by Benoit Mandelbrot (1997) combines his original mathematics classic papers contributes to finance and new material tying these together to helps to lay a foundation for how speculative prices vary in time and evaluating risks in trading strategies.

$# Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another by Philip Ball (2006) shows how the application of the laws of modern physics to the social sciences can greatly enrich our understanding of the laws of human behavior. So this connects some of the issues of Mandelbrot's power law distributions with behavioral finance. Although very readable, it covers topics somewhat removed from personal finance.

$ Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart by Ian Ayers (2007). (Derived from Amazon.com review) Yale Law School professor and econometrician Ayres argues that the creation of huge data sets allows knowledgeable individuals and corporations to make previously impossible predictions often more much accurate than "experts" intuitive predictions. He calls the data set analysts super crunchers and discusses changes they're making to industries like medical diagnostics, air travel pricing, screenwriting, how the corporate world tries to manipulate consumer behavior and telling consumers how to fight back. His real mission is to educate readers about the basics of statistics and hypothesis testing, spending most of his time in an edifying and entertaining discussion of the use of regression and randomized trials. He finds that statistical methods are often more accurate than the more intuitive conclusions drawn by experts. He shows the importance that statistical literacy can play in our lives, especially now that technology permits it to occur on a scale never before imagined. His web site is http://islandia.law.yale.edu/ayres/.

$ Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life by John C. Bogle (2008) [From Amazon.com] "Written by John C. Bogle–the legendary founder of the Vanguard Mutual Fund–Enough. offers his unparalleled insights on money, the values we should emulate in our business and professional callings, and what we should consider as the true treasures in our lives. Inspired in large measure by the hundreds of lectures Bogle has delivered to professional groups and college students in recent years, this book will help you discover what it really means to have 'enough' and how close you are to really having it.".

$ The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism by John C. Bogle (2006) [From Amazon.com] "Despite its inflated title, this volume is a worthy jeremiad against corporate excess, especially the kind hastened by the mutual fund industry that Bogle, former CEO of low-cost Vanguard, knows well. Among the problems: inflated executive compensation and creative accounting that allows companies to claim profits even when they're in the red. Mutual fund companies, Bogle charges, care more about short-term results than long-term value, and many of them gain profits for larger parent corporations by charging investors unnecessary fees that undermine the funds' net returns. To remedy such problems, Bogle writes, mutual fund owners and their fiduciaries must exercise the corporate responsibility they now shirk, and fund boards must be reshaped to serve the interests of shareholders. He advances in all seriousness Warren Buffett's once-joking idea for a high tax on short-term trading gains and calls for a federal commission to examine the way pension funds are managed, as well as the state of our retirement systems in general. While other recent books, such as David Swensen's Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment, marry similar criticisms with more advice for individual investors, Bogle—a rock-ribbed Republican businessman—still deserves attention in the precincts of power."

$ The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy by William Greider (2004) [From Amazon.com] "The good news is, American capitalism has "solved the economic problem" of overcoming scarcity, says veteran journalist Greider, currently with the Nation. Most Americans live materially comfortable lives. The bad news: capitalism seems increasingly dysfunctional and alienating, and fundamentally conflicts with humanity's noneconomic values. Greider says we have the luxury and responsibility now to repair this, to transform the essential purpose of our economic system from the relentless pursuit of "more" to the fulfillment of "human needs." Greider (Secrets of the Temple) breaks from the standard left-wing critique in one critical respect: he believes the system will be changed not by activist government but by a variety of small-scale reformers working to transform the economic system from within. Greider reports on experiments in corporate governance, especially employee ownership and consultative decision making. He investigates initiatives in corporate financing, most significantly, the growing practice of socially responsible investing by union and pension funds. Toward ecological sustainability, Greider's proposals include industries' developing "closed-loop recycling that mimics nature." Arguing that current government policies amplify capitalism's distortions, Greider emphasizes redirecting government expenditures from corporate subsidies to long-term social investments. Greider is immoderately optimistic, but without illusions about the challenges these grassroots movements face. Wisely, he recommends local experiments before considering any grandiose plans. Greider concedes that people might perceive a "touchy-feely wishful thinking" in some of the reformers' projects, and that quality is not absent from the book, but his overall framework is fresh and valuable, and his reporting on specific efforts is resourceful and illuminating."

$ Creative Capitalism: A Conversation with Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Other Economic Leaders Conor Clarke (Contrib.), Michale Kinsley (ed)(2008) who discuss the two alternative approaches to mitigating the negative effects of full-bore capitalism through corporate contributions vs the contributions of shareholders through their private contributions from their corporation-maximized shareholder profits.

$ Investing With Your Values: Making Money and Making a Difference by Hal Brill, Jack A. Brill, and Cliff Feigenbaum (2000) goes into the details of socially responsible investing (SRI). Feigenbaum writes the http://www.greenmoney.org/ web site (also see the http://www.socialinvest.org/ web site).

$ Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition by Lester Brown (2008) [Amazon.com description] "In this updated edition of the landmark Plan B, Lester Brown outlines a survival strategy for our early twenty-first-century civilization. The world faces many environmental trends of disruption and decline, including rising temperatures and spreading water shortage. In addition to these looming threats, we face the peaking of oil, annual population growth of 70 million, a widening global economic divide, and a growing list of failing states. The scale and complexity of issues facing our fast-forward world have no precedent. With Plan A, business as usual, we have neglected these issues overly long. In Plan B 3.0, Lester R. Brown warns that the only effective response now is a World War II-type mobilization like that in the United States after the attack on Pearl Harbor." Lester Brown is President of the Earth Policy Institute

$ The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics by Riane Eisler (2007) describes the real wealth of a nation is in its people and how a caring collaborative economy can result in a fairer more productive economy based more on partnerships between the players rather than the common denomination model found in many (but not all) economies.

$ Getting a Life: Strategies for Simple Living Based on the Revolutionary Program for Financial Freedom, "Your Money or Your Life" by Jacquelyn Blix and David Heitmiller (1999) extends some of the discussion of "Your Money or Your Life". Not SRI per-se.

$ Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin (1999) discusses balance in ones life and ways to get there. Not SRI per-se.

$ The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption by John Perkins (2007) discusses problems of global economic corruption.

$ The Clean Tech Revolution: The Next Big Growth and Investment Opportunity by Ron Pernick, Clint Wilder (2007). [Derived from Amazon.com description] Alternative energy, once the domain of hippies and off-the-grid fringe enthusiasts, has gone mainstream. Although technologies such as solar and wind power, plant-based fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel, and "green" buildings have become hip because of environmental awareness and global climate change, the real reason behind their increasing profile is economics. When clean energy sources begin to rival more traditional ones on a cost basis, which is beginning to happen now owing to advances related to the microchip and economies of scale, corporations will quickly begin to take notice. Although Pernick and Wilder state that they are not financial advisors, they profile the leading companies involved in the most promising of these alternative energies, which gives the reader a place to begin doing further research into investment opportunities. The book is an excellent update on the current state of the industry and a who's who of the companies poised to profit from this exciting array of technologies. .

$# Retirement Income Redesigned: Master Plans for Distribution: An Adviser's Guide for Funding Boomers' Best Years by Harold Evensky and Deena B Katz (Editors) (April 2007) is a collection of 20 essays on retirement planning shifting the focus of much of the current literature from the accumulation of assets to their distribution during retirement.

$ Live Long and Prosper: Invest in Your Happiness, Health and Wealth for Retirement and Beyond by Steve Vernon (2004) is both about the psychological aspects and the financial. Amongst other things he discusses figuring out how much you will need, and various methods of taking money out of retirement savings. He is a semi-retired VP of Watson Wyatt Worldwide that provides retirement services for many companies internationally. He has a site: http://www.restoflife.com/ with lots of supplementary material on it.

$ The Number: A Completely Different Way to Think About the Rest of Your Life by Lee Eisenberg (2006) suggests that many peoples goals of saving until they reach their "number" or how much they need to retire may not be the best or only way to prepare for retirement. He suggests that the future(s) we envision may be like and may in fact be more affordable. His web site is http://www.TheNumberBook.com/.

Your Complete Retirement Planning Road Map: The Leave-Nothing-to-Chance, Worry-Free, All-Systems-Go Guide by Ed Slott (2006) is not an investment book, but rather discusses the process of managing and accessing their retirement funds while avoiding costly missteps. It focuses on the savings one already has, providing the steps necessary for "protecting, preserving and passing the balance (if any) in their retirement account to their heirs.".

$ The New Retirementality: Planning Your Life and Living Your Dreams... at Any Age You Want by Mitch Anthony (2006) "Author Mitch Anthony reveals the latest thinking about retirement to show readers:Why our culture has undergone a transformational shift concerning retirement and how to adapt to this changeHow to calculate income for life using powerful new methods from leading analysts and plannersWhat are the vital signs that indicate retirement is the right decision - how to live a vibrant life and find meaning outside the traditional world of work" (Amazon.com). His web site is http://www.flpinc.com/.

Note: many of the other books mentioned in these lists also touch on the retirement income topics. In addition, there is some discussion on this topic in another list of selected books on non-financial aspects of thinking about retirement.