If you want to become a successful investor, then knowledge is power. There are so many lessons that I have learned through reading what I call the best investing books. We should have been taught in school. If you want the best investing advice, then reading some of these books should help you.
Whether you want to invest for retirement or get into the stock markets, these books can help you. I was in my 30s before I learned the power of compound interest, something that Einstein calls one of the wonders of the world. But no matter how old you are there, it's never too late to start investing for your retirement. It's just that the younger you are, the more you will benefit.
But if you are like me and are nervous about losing money or wonder if investing is just for the ultra-rich, then these books could help you as they did me and make a positive impact on your financial future. Even if you pick one investment book from this list, you will benefit.
Best Investing Books for Beginners
Rich Dad Poor Dad (1997) by Robert Kiyosaki
This book is an absolute classic and should help you develop the mindset needed to take the courage to start your investment journey if you haven't already. It's a great investing book for those looking to master their mindset. It's an investment book to teach you about the attitude to invest.
What Kiyosaki cements is that learning is the key to financial independence. This is because we are not trained in financial intelligence in school. It is up to us as individuals to develop this trait by ourselves.
He talks about financial IQ, and we are only likely to become wealthy or financially independent once we have that and healthy mindset to go with it.
I loved this book because there is actionable advice, but it made me think differently and courage to start investing.
The Intelligent Investor (1949) by Benjamin Graham
One of The undisputed best-investing books of all time and is still relevant in 2021. The original investment guide you'll ever need in your collection. Investors should have this book in their collection.
It was hailed by Warren Buffett as the best investing book ever written. Although initially written in 1949 by Benjamin Graham, the techniques described in the book are still as relevant today as the day it was written. Analysis by Benjamin Graham can help any value investor.
Benjamin Graham, you may have heard, is described as the "father of value investing". In the book, Graham delves into the stock market's history and informs the reader about conducting fundamental analysis. He discusses various ways of managing your portfolio, including both a positive and defensive approach.
He goes on to discuss if the investment is worth the risk? The answer is yes. It can be, so long as you follow the strategy, go intelligent investing.
This is an excellent book hailed by the greats like Buffett, so it should defiantly be on your reading list!
Benjamin Graham
-investor-
"a defensive investor runs - and wins - the race by sitting still."
Best Investing Books on Value Investing
The Warren Buffett Way by Robert G Hagstrom
Warren Buffett is the most famous investor of all time and one of today’s most admired business leaders. He became a billionaire and investment sage by looking at companies as businesses rather than prices on a stock screen.
If you want to learn to master stocks and look at how Warren Buffett does, this is the book for you. It's a New York Times bestseller for a reason. The author seems to capture what Buffett is about, not just from his stocks but how he rides out the storms of the stock market.
The new edition explains the psychological foundations of Buffett’s approach, thus giving readers the best roadmap for mastering both the principles and behaviours that have made Buffett the most significant investor of our generation.
Best Investing Books on Investing in Stocks
One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch
The three central tenets of the book are: investing opportunities are everywhere, buy what you know, hold for the long term. Lynch writes from his personal experience, having gone from an intern at Fidelity Investments to growing a small mutual fund called the Magellan Fund from $18 million to $14 billion over 23 years.
Averaging almost 30% annual return, the Magellan Fund was the most successful mutual fund globally.
If you want to get started in stocks, advice from Peter Lynch is a great start.
Buffett’s 2-Step Stock Market Strategy: Know When to Buy A Stock, Become a Millionaire, Get The Highest Returns
Another book based on Buffett, I guess who should you learn from if not the best! The book is a great introduction to value investing. What is excellent for me in this book is that the author takes you through how he analyses stocks and what metrics to look at, which from personal experience, I found daunting when starting.
This book is excellent for anyone looking to make intelligent investment decisions based on long term company fundamentals instead of speculation or purely stock prices which is an easy trap to fall into.
Best Investing Books on Dividend Investing
Warren Buffett and the Interpretation of Financial Statements
Written by Mary Buffett, Warrens former daughter in law. This is a great book to understand how you can read financial statements like Buffett.
Targeted at beginners, this book was good for reading financial statements and interpreting fundamental financial ratios.
If you are already good at reading financial statements, this book probably isn't for you, but if you're like me and just starting, then it's a worth while investor book to add to your collection.
Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd
Two professors wrote Security Analysis at Columbia University. The authors Ben Graham and David Dodd are considered to be the founders of security analysis. They used their expertise in this field to evaluate the stocks that they were buying.
It was written in 1934, so it is pretty old, but it can still be applied today. They also included various methods of calculating risk or return. Security Analysis is still very famous for these methods because many other people have copied them.
The book is not meant for individuals without experience; all you need to know about stocks before reading Security Analysis is that the stocks are divided into three categories, A-D. This means you will need to know what types of investments different stocks fall under (long-term vs short-term), and you should know what the different types of risks are, such as systematic or unsystematic.
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich is a 1937 book, which also includes thirteen lectures. The book has been the prominent work on success, helping to provide insight into what it takes to achieve material wealth.
"What the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve."
-NAPOLEON HILL
The book is one in a line of similar books by Hill and was extremely successful.
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John C. Bogle
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John C. Bogle is a good book to read on basic investing principles. The Little Book of Common Sense Investing provides a lot of information about investing in a short amount of time. I liked best from this book because it gives its readers key points on investing, which are easy to understand and practical to apply to investing and investing basics. I agree with the principles in investing because it makes investing easy and practical. The book is like a quick guide to investing.
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John C. Bogle is a helpful investing book for beginners. I would recommend investing books such as The Little Book of Common Sense Investing because it provides strategies on investing.
I really enjoyed how straightforward the author presents his ideas and thoughts as he lays out some basic investing principles, which are easy to understand and simple enough for anyone unfamiliar with investing in comprehending easily. This book provides great insight into investing and also discusses investing basics.
The Essays of Warren Buffett by Lawrence A. Cunningham
This book is a remarkable biography of investing legend Warren Buffett. It provides an investing philosophy that can be easily understood and applied by investors of all levels. The essays contribute to investing literature while also serving as a personal look at one of the most successful people in investing history. The investing ideas presented in this book are timeless. They range from the little-known insights of investing legends like Benjamin Graham to Buffett's most recent letters and speeches at Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s annual meetings. The lessons taught by his insights show that he is, as always, ahead of the game.
Market Wizards by Jack D. Schwager
Market Wizards is a study of the investing experiences of twenty-eight different investing professionals. The investing professionals are interviewed to get their views on investing. The interviewees are highly experienced investors with various investing backgrounds. Their investing styles include value investing, growth investing, short selling, arbitrage, market timing, technical analysis and macroeconomics. The questions asked to each investing professional are intended to reveal how they think about investing. The investing professionals interviewed include Michael Steinhardt, Ed Seykota, Marty Schwartz and Tom Baldwin. This book is an investing classic because it reveals the different styles of investing used by leading industry practitioners.
The Education of a Value Investor: My Transformative Quest for Wealth, Wisdom, Enlightenment by Guy Spier
Guy Spier is an investing fanatic who educated himself to the best of his abilities. Many investing books are good, but this one is the best I've seen.
The Education of a Value Investor by Guy Spier is investing book for the investing fanatic.
Guy Spier has an investing & private wealth management company based outside New York City. He was born into privileged circumstances, spent his formative years living worldwide, and formed his own hedge fund company at age twenty-six. After catering to some of Wall Street's top money managers, he took it public in 1999, which gave him enough independence to focus on what he loves most: understanding the market's inner workings so that he can invest with no fear.
You Can Be a Stock Market Genius by Joel Greenblatt
This investing book helps people be better investors and teaches how investing is about putting your money on the stock exchange and timing and investing in what you know. The investing book is a great way for new investors to learn basics and more complicated investing strategies. The investing book has different investing strategies that are explained in detail with examples.
Alternatives to Investing Books
This wouldn't be a good financial blog if I didn't share other resources to learn about investing and do it in a cost and time-efficient way. Of course, there are more ways to learn about investing than even the best investing books.
I know it will usually cost time and money when learning any new skill, both of which aren't at my disposal.
Here are a few other resources that I have used to develop my knowledge of investing without breaking the bank:
Blinkist - Best for Someone With a Lack of Time to Read an Investing Book
If you, like me, sometimes struggle to find the time to read through a book, then Blinkist is an excellent alternative. What Blinkist does is summarises key non-fiction books into 15-20 minutes written and audio format. It's pretty cool, to be honest!
I use this daily when taking my dog for a walk. For me, it's like listening to a podcast, and I am educating myself daily.
Some of the books I have listed in this post are actually available in Blinkist. For instance, I have read Rich dad poor dad, but I also recently listened to Blinkist for a recap and refocused book.
So for me, Blinkist is good for three things:
- Summarising books so I can still take some learnings each day if I don't have the time to read the full book right now (better than nothing alternative)
- Helping me recap and refocus the points from books that I already own or have read in the past.
- Helping me find out if I would like to invest my time and money into purchasing and reading the full book.
So to be clear, Blinkist doesn't replace the book but gives you a great way to keep learning each day in bite-sized segments. It is subscription-based, so you get access to as many non-fiction books as you want monthly once you're in. It's unlimited.
< Find out more about Blinkist here and get access to a free trial >
Kindle Unlimited - Save Money on Buying Investing Books
I've used this on and off over the years, but it's a great service that will save you money, especially if you want to read many books in a short space of time.
With Kindle Unlimited, you get access to over 1 million ebooks that you can read on most devices, including phone, tablet, PC and of course, Amazons own Kindle device.
< Find out more about Kindle Unlimited service here >
Motley Fool - Best for Stock Picking

Depending on why you are reading about investing, this service might be worth looking into if you want real-time advice about stocks. For this, I have been a member of the Fools stock advisor service for the past 18 months, and so far, I have to say I am impressed.
I joined because I wanted to make sure I was buying the right shares checked over by real experts, as I know I am a beginner.
What the stock advisor service has given me is peace of mind and confidence. Yes, you pay an annual subscription, but that paid for itself in one of the stocks recommended in my personal circumstance.
The service comes with monthly stock picks and guides to show you how they have come to conclusions, and best manage your portfolio. Check out my full review Motley Fool Stock Advisor.
Best Investing Books: Bottom Line
There are lots of great resources to start your journey of investing. What's important is to pick what's right for you. Hopefully, some of these investing books and resources will help you on your investing journey just like they have mine.
Let me know in the comments below if you went for any of the books or resources and if they were useful! Oh, and give me a share. If you did like this article, it would mean a lot 🙂
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