I went on a mad law-readings-induced frenzy of photo-taking and ended up deleting all of them except for these 3 of my bookshelf here in Melbourne.
Note the heavy concentration of libertarian (Hayek, Epstein) and free-market/globalisation books. V for Vendetta is at the left-end.
Also note the Grado SR60 headphones in the foreground. *glee* Best headphones ever made on earth!
Economics, check. Intellectual property, check. Open source, check. Larry Lessig, check. New media and technology, check.
There are only 2 books ever worth buying when it comes to finance and investments, and they are The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, and A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel.
The guide books by The Economist are good for practical uses too.
I have only read 1 quarter of the books here, and 1 quarter not finished reading. That means fully half of them I want to read, but have absolutely no time to.
9 Comments
Awesome books! Sadly for me, your bookshelf looks like my Amazon wishlist!! There is a really good cataloguing site which I use at http://www.librarything.com, it is getting really big! Hope the law readings aren’t too stressful!
“There are only 2 books ever worth buying when it comes to finance and investments”
You make wish to add a couple more to the list.
I think Graham’s _Security Analysis_ should make that list as the top reference. It is not as easy to read as _The Intelligent Investor_ but it goes into much more detail about the practical applications.
And what about Philip Fisher’s _Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits_. That one ties with _The Intelligent Investor_, in my opinion.
And of course the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder letters are the best introduction I can recommend for anyone looking to take up the stock market hobby.
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Heh.. and given your libertarian slant I am surprised not to see any Ayn Rand books up there.
Believe it or not, I find Ayn Rand to be distasteful and shameless as a moral philosopher.
She called Hayek a traitor for conceding that governments have SOME role to play in maintaining the stability of society, and she decried libertarians as being a bunch of wannabes.
And then she came up with something called Objectivism, whatever the hell that is.
She might be quite fine as a writer (I have yet to read Atlas Shrugged, but I’ve read good reviews of that book), but as a thinker? She comes across as a nutcase.
nice. i lurve looking at people’s bookshelf
i see the V for vendetta you ordered a while back. as well as the lessig books.
i’m pretty sure you would’ve seen this by now, an audio of lessig’s free culture lecture combined with the appropriate slides from the presentation
i have a few book recomendations myself but i know you’re too swamped with work to be joy reading now.. so next time then.
Rand is not that great a writer actually. Think Russian epics where it just goes on and on and on and on. Sort of the opposite of Hemmingway. When I read her fiction, I mentally reach for the ‘fast forward’ button.
It is her ideas that I find interesting. The fact that they are considered distasteful and that they argue for a moral viewpoint not commonly accepted is interesting to me. We will not otherwise be offended unless something we believe strongly in is challenged. For me personally, Rand falls in the same mental box as Machiavelli (i.e. I try hard to make up my own mind based on the author’s original works and try not to be too influenced by others’ reviews).
Best comment I have had on Rand’s works: “It is important to read her (works), but you do not necessarily have to agree with her.”
PS Her non-fiction works are a lot more palatable.
KoP:
you have a point. It doesn’t speak too well of me that I closed my mind off to her ideas simply because I don’t agree with them on the surface.
perhaps I can try to read her writings and keep an open-mind about it. I still can’t help but feel she’s somewhat of a nut though… lol
Don’t be too hard on yourself. Most (if not all) of us have that blindspot to seek confirmatory evidence and dismiss/downplay material that challenge our established worldview.
After all these years I am still trying to read Kant - who comes across to me as a pompous inpractical guy with a questionable grasp on reality. And Karl Popper - an essential read for anybody with an interest in the hard sciences - just simply confuses me sometimes.
Just another bit of trivia on why it may be important to read Rand. Her ideas and writings had a strong influence on the formative years of one young Alan Greenspan.
That’s one hardcore bookshelf.