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Books

 

Personal Finance & Investing

If You Can by William J. Bernstein — This is probably the best introduction to personal finance. This short book teaches people how to save for retirement with a simple asset allocation. I’ve found the book recommendations at the end of each chapter very useful. This book is responsible for igniting my curiosity about personal finance and investing. (The author has made this available for free and a copy can be found here).

Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez — The book that truly changed how I view money and its relation to work and life. This book doesn’t tell you how much to save, what to buy, or what is going to make you happy. Instead, it provides you ways to figure it out for yourself. It will make you consider your relationship with money and how to make it more fulfilling.

Common Sense on Mutual Funds by John C. Bogle — An extremely important book, written by the founder of Vanguard, on how to invest in the stock and bond markets. If you read this book and apply its investing principles (concentrate on low-cost index funds with low turnover rates) you will be better off than hiring investment managers who exist to make a profit for their investment companies at your expense. (Although this is a long book, the only chapters you really need to read for investing principles are chapters 1 through 4).

The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko — An eye-opening book on how the self-made millionaires of America (80 to 85 percent of millionaires in America are self-made) made their fortunes and spend their money. They didn’t become millionaires due to inheritance, having a sexy career, or winning the lottery. They don’t buy brand-new cars, expensive clothes, or live in upscale neighborhoods. To them, being financially independent is more important than displaying status. They are mindful of their household budget and spending. They live well below their means. In short, they don’t look or act the way a typical person would picture a millionaire looking or acting.

Career & Productivity

Deep Work by Cal Newport — This book illustrates the importance of being able to focus on a cognitively demanding task (e.g., writing, painting, computer programming, problem solving, and so on) without distraction. This skill is important to your own sense of satisfaction with your work and to your ability to produce work that is valuable to others. It has given me effective strategies for combating distractions whenever I am working on something difficult.

So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport — Gives a compelling case for focusing on acquiring hard and valuable skills instead of following your passion for a career. Cal Newport shows how passion and love for your work naturally develop once a certain mastery of it has been achieved. This book made me consider that people focus too much on the chase for a career that will “fulfill” them, rather than focusing on providing value to the world through their career. I read this book while I was studying computer science in school. At that time I wasn’t good at programming yet and it wasn’t a very enjoyable activity. This book encouraged me to stick with it because I knew that I would begin to enjoy programming more once I had mastered it. He was right.

How to Become a Straight-A Student by Cal Newport — The first Cal Newport book I ever read. There was a time when I struggled greatly in university. I spent way too much time doing unproductive work. For example, I spent too much time re-writing notes and re-reading book chapters instead of tackling more problem sets. This book laid out great strategies and insights for learning more in classes from successful students across the nation. It was an immense help.

Science, Sociology, & Psychology

Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway — For many years, special interest groups and a handful of scientists have worked together to form an illusion of doubt about the harms of tobacco, the hole in the ozone layer, and now climate change. This book, written by science historians, exposes these groups’ tactics and shows, once and for all, that the science behind climate change has actually been settled for a long time. You can read Kubo Queen’s full book review here.

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman — A thought-provoking book on how television has dumbed down public discourse in America. It was published in 1985 when the TV dominated as our source of news, information, and political discourse… I wonder what Neil Postman would have to say now, if he were still alive, on politicians communicating their flippant thoughts through tweets.

Technopoly by Neil Postman — Another thought-provoking book by Neil Postman on how our society has become a technopoly — a society where its culture is shaped by its technology. The main idea that stuck with me was how we welcome new technologies without considering their negative effects and consequences, and how their inventors have usually been wrong when making predictions on how the technologies will be used by people. An example I recently noticed is bitcoin. Bitcoin was developed to be a de-centralized electronic alternative to money managed by governments and central banks. However, it is now being used for criminal activity, scams, and speculative investment. None of these uses was intended by its creator.

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins — Dawkins is a evolutionary biologist who is famous for his books explaining Darwinian evolution to the general public. This is the only Dawkins book I’ve read so far. It explains how evolution through natural selection really works. This book is really interesting, and it clarified my understanding of evolution, which is usually described in an imprecise way in our everyday discourse.

Services

Vanguard — If you live in America and are thinking of investing in the bond and stock markets, then this is the brokerage for you. Vanguard is a mutually structured company (and, as far as I know, the only brokerage structured in this way). This means that they don’t have external shareholders they are responsible to — you are their shareholder. Thus, their bottom-line is to make you (the investor) happy and wealthy.

Mint — A great free tool for making budgets and monitoring expenses. This is what we use to track our household spending. You can link your bank accounts and bills, and even your investments. If you sign up for this service and look at your spending for just a couple months, you might learn things you didn’t know about where your money is going.

TurboTax — Another great tool. This is what we use for filing our income tax. Most of the time the service is either free or only requires a small fee.