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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.