Click on the title to be linked to Amazon's ordering page. Featured Recommendations  | The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization , by Thomas L. Friedman - One day in 1992, Thomas Friedman toured a Lexus factory in Japan and marveled at the robots that put the luxury cars together. That evening, as he ate sushi on a Japanese bullet train, he read a story about yet another Middle East squabble between Palestinians and Israelis. And it hit him: Half the world was lusting after those Lexuses, or at least the brilliant technology that made them possible, and the other half was fighting over who owned which olive tree. Friedman, the well-traveled New York Times foreign-affairs columnist, peppers The Lexus and the Olive Tree with stories that illustrate his central theme: that globalization--the Lexus--is the central organizing principle of the post-cold war world, even though many individuals and nations resist by holding onto what has traditionally mattered to them--the olive tree. |
 | Baby boomers can treat themselves to a special consultation with Charles Schwab in this personalized account of the second half of life. John Rubenstein delivers a clear, consistent narration that is practiced and knowledgeable. The listener is also treated to a special introduction and conclusion read by the author. This guide is a good primer for new investors, as well as a strategy guide for the more experienced. |
 | "Bernstein has become a guru to a peculiarly '90s group: well-educated, Internet-powered people intent on investing well--and with minimal 'help' from professional Wall Street."--Robert Barker, BusinessWeek William Bernstein is one of today's most unlikely financial heroes. A practicing neurologist, he used his self-taught investment knowledge and research to build a popular investor's website. Now, in the plain-spoken The Intelligent Asset Allocator, he shows independent investors how to build a diversified portfolio--without the help of a financial advisor. |
Economics  | Investors -- be they aggressive or conservative, self-directed or professionally managed -- are always on the lookout for an edge. And in James O'Shaughnessy's What Works on Wall Street: A Guide to the Best-Performing Investment Strategies of All Time, they'll find a solid one: authoritative analysis of popular practices from the past. The author examines three decades of stock market data to show how 15 of the most common investment tactics have fared over time. |
 | It has appeared in multiple editions and influenced two generatons of economists, investors, and businessmen. After presenting the basics of money and banking theory, he traces the decline of the dollar from the 18th century to the present, and provides lucid critiques of central banking, New Deal monetary policy, Nixonian fiat money, and fixed exchange rates. He also provides a blueprint for a return to a 100 percent reserve gold standard. |
 | This book deals with protecting individual's financial investments offshore. Offers a list of contacts in various countries for people to set up an offshore bank account, trust, citizenship program or other asset protection plans. List countries that offer the greatest benefits to people looking to invest offshore. |
| Devil Take The Hindmost chronicles the great booms and busts of financial history. "If you know history's mistakes," as the saying goes, "you're bound not to repeat them." The stories in this book are fabulous. And the similarities of booms and busts compared to each other and applied to today are incredibly valuable. |
| The best book out there on how the world works. It's so entertaining, that it's usually found in the humor section, not the economics section, of the bookstore. Disguised in all the fun is a powerful dissertation on why freedom creates incredible wealth. When you're done, do your part to save the future of the world - give it to your favorite bleeding-heart college kid. |
Less polemical than most of his better known works, it is an in-depth exploration of classical economics, and as such, I would generally recommend it only to those who are already fans of Bastiat or who have a solid grounding in economics. Intended to be his magnum opus, Bastiat died before its completion; as a result, the book is really only two-thirds complete. This is the reason for my having rated it just an "8". The editor was kind enough to include Bastiat's notes, where available, for the unfinished chapters, however. With those caveats, I wholeheartedly recommend this book, it is both readable and highly informative |
| This book has been the springboard from which millions have come to understand the basic truths about economics--and the economic fallacies responsible for inflation, unemployment, high taxes, and recession. Hazlitt explains this insight and applies it brilliantly to many specific economic issues (inflation, unemployment, price controls, international trade, and others). By the time the reader has completed this book, he or she will be 'thinking like an economist'. |
| Mr. Murray's analysis of government social programs in the past half century was an eye-opener for a born-and-raised liberal Democrat like myself. It is difficult to disagree with his overall conclusion that these programs have generally been failures, and in many cases did more harm than good. This is not easy to swallow if you were raised with the firmly entrenched (and deeply righteous) belief that people who "really care" always support well-intentioned government programs that aim to solve social problems. It has always been an assumption in my thinking that those who opposed virtually any new government agency or social program lacked compassion, or worse. |
One of the earliest books in the classical liberal/libertarian tradtion. It should be read before moving one to more complex works, such as Henry Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson" or most anything by Murray Rothbard. (The culmination of complexity is probably Ludwig von Mises's "Human Action.") Bastiat points out there are only two ways to gain wealth--steal it (usually done by government under the guise of taxes for 'redistribution' of wealth) or create it (which is done through the free market). His arguments are clear, easy to understand, and oftentimes humorous. A little classic. |
| Based on 3 principles--capital preservation, consistent profits and pursuit of superior returns--``Trader Vic'' highlights proven strategies usable by any investor. Victor Sperandeo has developed a uniquely powerful investment strategy integrating knowledge of the markets, technical analysis, odds and probability, economics, politics, and psychology. His book helps make consistent winners--even in an inconsistent market |
| This is a great book. Welfare replaces community and family with government for the price of a few bucks a month. The result is NO guidance to prevent unwed teen mothers, crime, drugs, and no role models to inspire learning and family/community bonds. The end result is we get people very much alone just making it up as they go along (and not being very successful at it). Misguided well-intentioned welfare has increased the suffering in this country to an astronomical level. Why? Because of misguided guilt-ridden middle class and the politicians what take advantage of them. |
Investment Strategies 
| You'll learn from in-depth interviews with 17 of the world's top traders. These folks all turned mere pittance into many millions of dollars during their storied careers. You get to learn all their mistakes, so you don't repeat them - all while you gain a grand total of 340 years of in-the-pit investment experience. |
| It's unlikely that you'll spot many dog-eared copies of A Random Walk floating amongst the Wall Street set (although bookshelves at home may prove otherwise). After all, a "random walk"--in market terms--suggests that a "blindfolded monkey" would have as much luck selecting a portfolio as a pro. But Burton Malkiel's classic investment book is anything but random. Since stock prices cannot be predicted in the short term, argues Malkiel, individual investors are better off buying and holding onto index funds than meddling with securities or actively managing mutual funds. |
| In this shrewd and wickedly funny book, Michael Lewis describes an astonishing era and his own rake's progress through the jungle of a powerful investment bank. In two short years he rose from trainee to a bond salesman who could turn over millions of dollars' worth of doubtful bonds with just one call. This irreverent and hilarious birds-eye view of Wall Street's heyday will appeal to anyone intrigued by the allure of million dollar deals. |
| If you've ever spent weekends and nights puzzling over whether to buy, sell, or hold a position in whatever investment--be it stock, bonds, or pork bellies, you'll be glad that you read this book. The most important investment book for today's investors isn't on the hottest new trend--it's a book written over 70 years ago. Originally published in 1923, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator continues to inspire each new generation of investors. |
| Top-performing futures fund manager Victor Niederhoffer is no ordinary Wall Street guru. He never wears shoes in the office, reads no periodicals but the National Enquirer, and draws upon art and music--along with board games and horse racing--for long-term inspiration and ongoing motivation. The Education of a Speculator fully outlines Niederhoffer's proven prescription for competing successfully in today's tumultuous financial markets, in addition to unveiling his fascinating life story. |
| Van Tharp was one of the key players featured in Market Wizards: Interviews with Top Traders, which emerged as one of the best selling business books of the late 1980s, and is THE psychologist for traders. He has developed a hugely successful seminar business that he conducts for large brokerage houses and banks throughout the world, as well as a five-volume home study course. This book is based on these well-known seminars and courses. Tharp provides the answers that every trader is looking for: What is the one trading method that will solve all his trading problems? What is the real secret of successful traders? |
| Renowned financier Martin Zweig guides readers to smart investing in the 1990s stock market with proven strategies on how to make informed buy and sell decisions, pick winners, spot major bull and bear trends early, and more. This constant bestseller was first published in 1986 and first revised in 1990, with 77,000 trade paperback copies sold. One of America's most successful financial analysts provides a comprehensive, reliable guide to stock market investment, using proven techniques to pick stocks and explaining how to know when to buy and sell to achieve maximum return with minimum risk. |
Science 
| If you've been wondering how to make sense of all the new technology, you must read this book. You can finish it one in a day…and that day will change how you look at the world around you. This one, like all the rest, is an excellent introduction to its subject. |
| Crypto is about privacy in the information age and about the nerds and visionaries who, nearly twenty years ago, predicted that the Internet's greatest virtue-free access to information-was also its most perilous drawback: a possible end to privacy. |
| : Grace makes his complex subject easy to digest by dividing each chapter into palatable sections with clever subheads and often humorous sidebars, including a recipe for making DNA that calls for ingredients like "a handful of bacteria (about a thousand million)." He includes a dispassionate discussion of ethical repercussions and public concerns…. Since "the focus of biotechnology companies is profit, not philanthropy," Biotechnology Unzipped serves to caution us that without the requisite judiciousness, even the most wondrous and potentially life-saving feats of science "cannot, in the end, save us from who we are". |
| Science writer Matt Ridley has found a way to tell someone else's story without being accused of plagiarism. Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters delves deep within your body (and, to be fair, Ridley's too) looking for dirt dug up by the Human Genome Project. Each chapter pries one gene out of its chromosome and focuses on its role in our development and adult life, but also goes further, exploring the implications of genetic research and our quickly changing social attitudes toward this information. |
| Making PCR is the fascinating, behind-the-scenes account of the invention of one of the most significant biotech discoveries in our time--the polymerase chain reaction. Transforming the practice and potential of molecular biology, PCR extends scientists' ability to identify and manipulate genetic materials and accurately reproduces millions of copies of a given segment in a short period of time. It makes abundant what was once scarce--the genetic material required for experimentation. |
| A book for a limited audience. You have got to be interested in some really seminal, currently unresolved issues of how the great invention of the ALU (arithmetic logic unit) still employed in every computer built to the present day, was a compromise effort by this genius. He points out that the very language of the human brain has not yet been discovered--the orders of magnitude by which its process and results exceed the merely digital high speed comparator we call a computer (my apologies to Bill Gates!) clearly demonstrate the existence of a logic and a mathematics, the simplest rules of which as yet defy all our efforts to understand its workings, while we experience its results every time we think. |
| There is an ill-concealed skeleton in the closet of physics: "As they are currently formulated, general relativity and quantum mechanics cannot both be right." Each is exceedingly accurate in its field: general relativity explains the behavior of the universe at large scales, while quantum mechanics describes the behavior of subatomic particles. Yet the theories collide horribly under extreme conditions such as black holes or times close to the big bang. Brian Greene, a specialist in quantum field theory, believes that the two pillars of physics can be reconciled in superstring theory, a theory of everything. |
| Arthur Kornberg starts by describing how, as an academic, he was opposed to the commercialization of biotechnology. He describes his role on the advisorial board at DNAX and identifies the key elements for success in any biotech company. Kornberg details the risks in biotechnology and discusses the pros and cons of commercial biotechnology, and his take on patents - "Secrecy is corrosive; it makes even less sense in industry than in academia." In the end, he concludes that industry, not academia, is where the most productive science takes place. |
Eric Hoffer is a thoughtful author, in the truest sense of the word. In his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Hoffer makes over two hundred deep and powerful statements to ponder and adjust to. I usually find that I read two or three of his aphorisms, put the book down, and spend several days evaluating my life with them. These "truisms" cover what motivates us to do the things we do, how we respond to others, and how to live life without catching on the usual snags. |
Politics 
| Davidson and Rees-Mogg put forward a dispassionate and compelling argument on the ramifications and logical outworkings of the information age. This book provides a wealth of evidence, facts and historical precedent. The reader is challenged to seek out for himself the signs that these 'megapolitical' changes are, in fact, occuring. Recent examples include, the 'asian financial meltdown', the 'revenue problems' that taxation departments are experiencing world wide, the rise of xenophobic 'nationalist' parties reacting to globalisation and technology (Australias "One Nation Party"), the 'luddite' irrational argument of the evironmental movement, the list goes one - however, as Davidson and Rees-Mogg clearly state, you must find out for yourself. |
| Reading through the history of the State and its war on the citizen, Bovard looks at thinkers as diverse as John Locke, Etieene de la Boetie, James Madison, and G.W.F. Hegel.Bovard explores the original idea of the State; the corruption of the concept of freedom; how the rising number of government dependents is subverting democracy; and the ultimate fraud that is perpetrated as the State's benevolence. In these times of the Leviathan State, Freedom in Chains is must reading for everyone who took James Bovard's Lost Rights to heart, as well as for anyone trying to understand how government power has transformed self-reliant Americans into wards of the State. |
| Charles Murray's In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government raises fundamental issues. What is government's role in our lives? Do the solutions to some of our society's most persistent problems lie in the natural responses of individuals or in massive government efforts? Charles Murray lays out a bold plan for how we can all reconnect with our families our neighborhoods, and our communities, and can determine the role government should play in our lives. In his entertaining, readable style, Murray articulates a precise and revolutionary concept - that "the pursuit of happiness" is not just some vague platitude, but the cornerstone of human existence and the central justification of government. |
Philosophy 
| Nonzero, from New Republic writer Robert Wright, is a difficult and important book--well worth reading--addressing the controversial question of purpose in evolution. Using language suggesting that natural selection is a designer's tool, Wright inevitably draws the conclusion that evolution is goal-oriented (or at least moves toward inevitable ends independently of environmental or contingent variables). |
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