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The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing
By Benjamin Graham, Jason Zweig, and Warren E. Buffett
Collins Business 2003, 640 pages
$14.95 paperback, $9.99 Kindle

Originally published in 1949, this book is not for seekers of quick returns. It is for disciplined, long-term investors who are willing to do the deep research required to find stocks that are bargain-priced relative to current asset value. Value investor Warren Buffet, who (along with Money editor Jason Zweig) contributed to this updated edition in 2003, calls it “the best book on investing ever written.”

Getting Started in Value Investing
By Charles Mizrahi
Wiley 2007, 190 pages
$13.57 paperback

Writing in an accessible style, Mizrahi helps readers understand the value approach to investing, presents statistics that reveal the overwhelming success of this approach through a variety of markets, and shows readers how to look for undervalued companies. Keys to finding such companies include:

• Looking for businesses that have an enduring competitive advantage
• Analyzing the difference between price and value of a stock
• Mining financial statements for valuable insights

Mizrahi is managing patner of CGM Partners Fund and editor of the Hidden Values Alert newsletter.

Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment
By David F. Swensen
Free Press 2005, 403 pages
$21.60 hardcover, $16.50 Kindle

Incontrovertible evidence shows that most mutual funds are poor long-term investments. They may be OK for lazy investors, but for those who are willing to play an active role in managing their portfolios, there are more rewarding alternatives. Swensen (CIO of Yale University) recommends a well-diversified, equity-oriented “market-mimicking” portfolio of stocks, balanced with not-for-profit funds (with “client-oriented” fund managers) like TIAA-CREF.

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The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (Updated)
By Thomas L. Friedman
Picador 2007, 672 pages
$10.88 paperback, $9.99 Kindle

The ironic title helped to make this a huge best-seller, but a more apt one would be “The World is Connected.” Friedman’s main premise is that Globalization 3.0, as he calls it, is driven not by major corporations or giant trade organizations like the World Bank, but by desktop freelancers and innovative startups all over the world (especially in Asia). Thanks to technological advances in such areas as Internet telephony, collaborative websites, open-source software like Linux, and ubiquitous connectivity (as well as lowered trade barriers), feelancers and startups anywhere in the world can compete not just for low-wage manufacturing and IT labor but, increasingly, for high-end scientific and legal research, engineering, programming, and design work as well.

The outsourcing and offshoring trends are unstoppable and desirable, even exciting to the optimist Friedman. Americans should adapt rather than protect: prepare to “create value through leadership.” The 2007 edition is updated with info about the political roots of global Islamism.

The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy
By David M. Smick
Portfolio 2008, 320 pages
$10.51 hardcover, $9.99 Kindle

Smick refutes Friedman’s description of the “flat” world produced by globalization, arguing instead that political resistance to globalization, retaliatory protectionism,  a lack of transparency in the global financial markets, and overheated economic development in China, among other conditions, have created a world where events and their consequences are unpredictable. The author writes clearly, illuminating complex subjects for general readers. Smick was an economic adviser to central bankers and legislators for some 30 years. (Derived from Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal reviews.)

Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—and How It Can Renew America
By Thomas L. Friedman
Farrar, Straus 2008, 448 pages
$9.78 hardcover, $9.99 Kindle

The USA has become a “subprime nation that thinks it can just borrow its way to prosperity,” says Friedman (him again). Nevertheless, the U.S. market is the “most effective and prolific system for transformational innovation.” Although professedly a proponent of the free market, he still advocates using government to create conditions favorable to investment.

One of those conditions is a cleaner global environment. We need alternate energy sources, and stronger conservation and recycling programs–a green revolution. We need to achieve greater energy independence to counter the “petrodictatorship” threat from the Middle East.

But one of the biggest threats, Friedman warns, comes from within: America’s loss of focus and national purpose since 9/11/01. Whether or not you agree, Friedman’s book is entertaining, with vivid anecdotes—this man has been around the block.

The lesson of these two books, from a small investor’s perspective, is that the market is rigged in favor of people with inside info. Always assume analysts have conflicts of interest. (Click on the book images to see more details or to purchase.)

Blood on the Street: The Sensational Inside Story of How Wall Street Analysts Duped a Generation of Investors
By Charles Gasparino
Free Press 2005, 368 pages
$17.95 hardcover, $14.30 Kindle

In the booming 1990s, stock analysts Jack Grubman, Henry Blodget, and Mary Meeker issued buy recommendations for the stocks of certain corporations. Those stock values soared, and kept soaring. So did the prestige, celebrity, and salaries of Grubman (at Salomon Smith Barney and later Citigroup), Blodget (Merrill Lynch), and Meeker (Morgan Stanley). Then the tech bubble started to burst, and they saw it coming, but they continued to give high ratings to, let’s see, the tech companies that brought their investment banking business to Salomon, Merrill, and Morgan. When those stocks tanked, the deceptive practices of the analysts were laid bare. SEC chairman Arthur Levitt looked the other way while investors lost billions in stock value.

A little-known attorney general from New York named Elliott Spitzer stepped in to hold Wall Street accountable—for a while. Charles Gasparino, who broke this story in the Wall Street Journal, tells it here in fascinating detail, in an understated style that nevertheless evokes outrage.

Confessions of a Wall Street Analyst: A True Story of Inside Information and Corruption in the Stock Market
By Daniel Reingold, Jennifer Reingold
Harper 2007, 384 pages
$11.16 paperback, $9.56 Kindle

“Confessions” does not accurately describe the substance of this book. The author (a Wall Street analyst from 1989 to 2003) did nothing wrong, so he had nothing to confess. What he does is gripe about the analysts (mainly his competitors) who did things wrong, like insider trading and sellout analysis. He hammers home the lesson that “insider influence is so pervasive in the financial markets that investors should avoid individual stocks completely” (Publishers Weekly).

The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us
By Robyn Meredith
W.W. Norton 2007, 256 pages
$17.13 hardcover, $10.85 paperback, $9.56 Kindle, $19.79 audio CD

Since 2000, China has become “factory to the world, the United States became buyer to the world, and India…back office to the world,” says the author, who covers India and China for Forbes. In this thoroughly researched book, Meredith looks critically at each country’s economic development and plans for the future, and observes that China is making better progress than India because, for example, China’s citizens save more, while India’s infrastructure and education system are falling behind. Pro-trade and anti-protectionist, she believes that for the USA to stay competitive, it must “strengthen its education system, promote innovation, forget about protectionism…and focus on creating jobs.” (Booklist) [Click on the book image for more details or to purchase.]

Dancing With Giants: China, India, And the Global Economy
Edited by L. Alan Winters and Yashid Yusuf
World Bank Publications 2007, 288 pages
$24.95 paperback

This book’s seven chapters, each authored by leading researchers in their field, analyze China’s and India’s international trade, industrialization, foreign investment and capital flows, and impact of their broadening environmental footprints. It concludes that progress in alleviating poverty, reducing inequality, and promoting good governance is necessary for continued rapid and stable growth. It offers “deep insight into the prospects for Chinese and Indian growth and its likely impact on the world economy,” said Lawrence H. Summers, former Treasury secretary and professor of government at Harvard. [Click on the book image for more details or to purchase.]