The bible of value investing: Graham and Dodd's Security Analysis is hands-down the most influential investment book in history.

Everyone wants to succeed in life. But what causes some of us to be more successful than others? Is it really down to skill and strategy – or something altogether more unpredictable? This book is the word-of-mouth sensation that will change the way you think about business and the world. It is all about luck: more precisely, how we perceive luck in our personal and professional experiences. The book that initiated the Black Swan concept.

In 1991, Seth Klarman, founder and president of The Baupost Group and a phenomenally successful value investor, authored Margin of Safety, which since has become a value investing classic. Now out of print, Margin of Safety has sold on Amazon for $1,200 and eBay for $2,000.

Lucky or Smart? is the ONLY authentic guide to an entrepreneurial life, written by someone who lives it everyday. Bo Peabody started an Internet company as a 19-year-old student. Peabody sold his business to Lycos for nearly USD60 million. He kept his Lycos stock for the legally required period of time, during which the value of his shares increased tenfold. At the first possible moment, he sold - right before the Internet crash. Since then, Peabody has started several other successful businesses. Thus, the question at the heart of this book: is Bo Peabody lucky or smart? Peabody says he was smart enough to realize he was being lucky.

The stock-market profits that Joel Greenblatt is chasing are found in some areas not usually considered by the average investor: spin-offs, mergers, risk arbitrage, restructurings, rights offerings, bankruptcies, liquidations, and asset sales. Greenblatt acknowledges that pursuing them will require some time, effort, patience, and experience. But he argues that because these areas are not overstudied by the analysts, possible market inefficiencies can be exploited.

First published in 1949, is a widely acclaimed book on value investing, an investment approach Graham began teaching at Columbia Business School in 1928 and subsequently refined with David Dodd. Warren Buffett describes it as "by far the best book on investing ever written". He has said that the two most important chapters in the book are Chapter 8, The Investor and Market Fluctuations, where Graham develops his concept of Mr Market, and Chapter 20, Margin of Safety where he preaches the wisdom of leaving enough room to cover mistakes in judgment of a share’s intrinsic value.

Beyond the credibility that comes from someone whose private investment partnership, Gotham Capital, has produced 40 per cent a year returns over the past 20 years, Mr Greenblatt brings an elegant and simple writing style to what can be a complicated subject. He outlines a "magic formula", based on how he invests, that anyone can use. The formula has only two inputs, a company's earnings yield and its return on capital. The rationale is straightforward: buy shares in good businesses, measured by returns on capital, only when they're available at bargain prices, defined as a high earnings yield.

The concept of Margin of Safety should be part not only of your financial life. Survival expert Cody Lundin offers a blunt and honest account of what every family needs to prepare for possible emergencies, from shelter, water, food, cooking, survival kits, and sanitation, to the emotional and mental capabilities that keep us from falling into full panic mode. Lundin delves into the making of the self-reliant mind, and helps people to understand not only what physical resources are necessary, but which mental and emotional resources are vital for survival as well.

It's the only book which correctly points out that trading and investing are personal journeys; about finding out who are you, and then how to manage what you find out. Until you do, one can never be consistently successful at this game. Rule number 1: don't lose money. Rule number 2: don't forget rule number 1.

The closest thing you had to a crystal ball back in 1999. Peter Warburton wrote about the unexploded bomb in the global financial system, threatening to bring the greatest disruption to the lives of people since the Depression on the 1930s. Obviously, in line with Schopenhauer three stages of truth, it was first ridiculed and violenty opposed. Today, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is the fictionalized biography of Jesse Livermore, one of the greatest speculators ever. The timeless insights found within these pages have inspired countless generations of investors and made this book one of the foremost investment classics of all time. And although most modern–day investors and traders are familiar with this investment classic, many do not know that Reminiscences of a Stock Operator first appeared in the 1920s as a series of articles and illustrations in The Saturday Evening Post.

The struggle to perform well is universal, but nowhere is this drive to do better more important than in the world of medicine. In “Better”, Atul Gawande explores how doctors strive to close the gap between best intentions and best performance in the face of obstacles that sometimes seem insurmountable. Unflinching but compassionate, Gawande’s investigation into medical professionals and their progression from good to great provides a detailed blueprint for better performance that can be used by everyone… especially investors. It is an incredible, insightful and moving book.

Few legends in trading have been as enduring as that of the Turtles. The Turtles were traders in the 1980s trained in a trend-following methodology by Richard Dennis and William Eckhardt. Dennis was the wizard of the Chicago pit in the '70s and '80s. “The Complete Turtle Trader” covers not only the experiment, but a second generation of Turtles who were inspired by the Dennis/Eckhardt vision. One of the central themes is the role of deliberative practice in the acquisition of trading expertise and the importance of emotional resilience and entrepreneurial spirit in sustaining a trading career, Covel's segment discussing what separated a successful Turtle, Jerry Parker, from his less successful peers is perhaps the most insightful portion of the book. The focus on the process rather than the outcome, and the discipline to stick with it. Hmmm.

What if everything you know about raw talent, hard work, and great performance is wrong? Few, if any, of the people around you are truly great at what they do. But why aren't they? Why don't they manage businesses like Jack Welch or Andy Grove, play golf like Tiger Woods or play the violin like Itzhak Perlman? Asked to explain why a few people truly excel, most of us offer one of two answers: hard work or a natural talent. However, scientific evidence doesn't support the notion that specific natural talents make great performers. In one of the most popular Fortune articles in years, Geoff Colvin offered new evidence that top performers in any field - from Tiger Woods and Winston Churchill to Warren Buffett and Jack Welch - are not determined by their inborn talents. Greatness doesn t come from DNA but from practice and perseverance honed over decades.And not just plain old hard work, but a very specific kind of work.

For centuries, humankind has grappled with this question, searching for the secret to accomplishing great things. In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an invigorating intellectual journey to show us what makes an extreme overachiever. He reveals that we pay far too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where successful people are from: their culture, their family, and their generation. Gladwell examines how the careers of Bill Gates and the performance of world-class football players are alike; what top fighter pilots and The Beatles have in common; why so many top lawyers are Jewish; why Asians are good at maths; and why it is correct to say that the mathematician who solved Fermat's Theorem is not a genius. Overlaps with Talent is overrated.

In The Innovator's Dilemma, author Clayton M Christensen shows what the Honda Supercub, Intel's 8088 processor, and hydraulic excavators have in common. They are all examples of disruptive technologies that helped to redefine the competitive landscape of their respective markets. These products did not come about as the result of successful companies carrying out sound business practices in established markets. Christensen shows how these and other products cut into the low end of the marketplace and eventually evolved to displace high-end competitors and their reigning technologies. The only - and I really mean, the only - strategy book that matters

Why do some companies prosper while others fail? Despite great amounts of research, many of the studies that claim to pin down the secret of success are based in pseudoscience. The Halo Effect is the outcome of that pseudoscience. The book highlights the tendency of experts to point to the high financial performance of a successful company and then spread its golden glow to all of the company's attributes - clear strategy, strong values, and brilliant leadership. But in fact, as Rosenzweig clearly illustrates, the experts are not just wrong, but deluded. Rosenzweig suggests a more accurate way to think about leading a company, a robust and clearheaded approach that can save any business from ultimate failure. Forget about books like Good to Great and Built to Last. Read this one instead.

The Road to Serfdom remains one of the all-time classics of twentieth-century intellectual thought. For over half a century, it has inspired politicians and thinkers around the world, and has had a crucial impact on our political and cultural history. With trademark brilliance, Hayek argues convincingly that, while socialist ideals may be tempting, they cannot be accomplished except by means that few would approve of. Addressing economics, fascism, history, socialism and the Holocaust, Hayek unwraps the trappings of socialist ideology. He reveals to the world that little can result from such ideas except oppression and tyranny. Today, more than fifty years on, Hayek's warnings are just as valid as when The Road the Serfdom was first published.

Written in political exile in New Zealand during the Second World War and first published in two volumes in 1945, Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies is one of the most famous books of the twentieth century. Hailed by Bertrand Russell as a 'vigorous and profound defence of democracy', its now legendary attack on the philosophies of Plato, Hegel and Marx prophesied the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and exposed the fatal flaws of socially engineered political systems. Popper's highly accessible style, his erudite and lucid explanations of the political thought of great philosophers and the recent resurgence of totalitarian regimes around the world are just three the reasons for the book's enduring popularity and why it demands to be read today.

From groundbreaking writer and thinker Jared Diamond comes an epic, visionary new book on the mysterious collapse of past civilizations - and what this means for our future. Why do some societies flourish, while others founder? What happened to the people who made the forlorn long-abandoned statues of Easter Island or to the architects of the crumbling Maya pyramids? Will we go the same way, our skyscrapers one day standing derelict and overgrown like the temples at Angkor Wat? Bringing together new evidence from a startling range of sources and piecing together the myriad influences, from climate to culture, that make societies self-destruct, Collapse also shows how unlike our ancestors we can benefit from our knowledge of the past and learn to be survivors.

Paul Roberts explains why the food-delivery system is mired in economic, political and cultural problems, and examines the crisis that looms if it runs out of fuel or water, or both. For anyone who wants to understand the production, market and consumer implications involved in feeding the people on our planet.

The planet's finite supply of fresh water is under such pressure that soon it may be the most valuable commodity on earth. This brilliant atlas shows water distribution worldwide, and reflects the latest thinking and emerging issues. With data throughout, the atlas covers a wide range of topics to map how our limited water resources are shared and used around the world, as well as the challenges posed to their management by today's unprecedented population and environmental pressures.

This atlas maps every aspect of the food chain, from farming, production and retail to the food on our plates. It also investigates how, in an era of new technologies, globalized food trade and even plentiful supply, millions remain hungry.

The book, generally considered to be his magnum opus, is largely credited with creating the terminology and shape of modern macroeconomics. Chapter 12 of the book is probably one of the most important economics essays of all time. John Maynard Keynes was also a successful fund manager.

Neil Strauss takes us on a journey through America's heart of darkness as he scrambles to escape the system. He investigates ways of getting second citizenship on the island of St. Kitts, protecting his assets offshore, and making friends with an elite group of billionaires who are thinking exactly the same thing. Witty, intelligent and funny. The margin of safety rules!

Ben Sherwood travels worldwide to gain insight from people who have survived a slew of near fatal phenomena ranging from a mountain lion attack to a Holocaust concentration camp, and interviewing an array of experts to understand the psychology, genetics and jumble of other little things that determines whether we live or die. Ttwo questions are central to this book. What does it really take to survive a catastrophic event and what kind of survivor are you? The book is a useful, insightful exploration of the nature of survival, the resilience of the human mind and body, and the ways in which we can all use our natural gifts to maximize our chances of coming through catastrophic situations.

A first-person diary of living through the Great Depression. Haunting parallels to our own time!

The modern bible of value investing!

The Irrational Quest for Charismatic CEOs... Khurana argues that the market for CEOs, which we often assume runs on cool calculation and the impersonal forces of supply and demand, is culturally determined and too frequently inefficient.

The layman version of Good Calories, Bad Calories or The Diet Delusion. Always doubt everyone and everything. Even the obvious! Brilliant book!

Stanford polymath Ian Morris answers this provocative question, drawing uniquely on 20,000 years of history and archaeology, and the methods of social science.

George Friedman turns his eye on the future - offering a highly readable forecast of the changes we can expect around the world during the twenty-first century.

A superbly researched and sobering take on the epic financial crisis of 2008.

Reinventing Collapse examines the circumstances of the demise of the Soviet superpower and offers clear insights into how we might prepare for the collapse of the American empire.

Music journalist Mason, a former pirate radio and club DJ in London, explores how open source culture is changing the distribution and control of information and harnessing the old system of punk capitalism to new market conditions governing society.

Dilbert!

The long awaited sequel to the international bestselling phenomenon, Freakonomics.

In The Black Swan: the Impact of the Highly Improbable, Nassim Taleb focuses on that most dismal of sciences, predicting the future.

The book is a fresh explanation of the fundamental principles of the modern economy, illuminated by examples from the streets of London to the booming skyscrapers of Shanghai.

How the climate crisis will transform the global economy...

A piercing challenge to established economics, grounded in the ecological limits of a finite planet.

Behavioural investing seeks to bridge the gap between psychology and investing. All too many investors are unaware of the mental pitfalls that await them. Even once we are aware of our biases, we must recognise that knowledge does not equal behaviour. James Montier explores the biases we face, the way in which they show up in the investment process, and urges readers to adopt an empirically based sceptical approach to investing. The content is practitioner focused throughout and will be essential reading for any investment professional looking to improve their investing behaviour to maximise returns.

A guide to understanding ′the dismal science′ and how economic concepts and institutions affect all of our lives.

A book full of common sense advice for life.