A Random Walk Down Wall Street

#1 for me would be The Intelligent Investor, by Benjamin Graham. Also read all of Warren Buffett's Letters from the Chairman - they're all up on the Berkshire Hathaway website. Peter Lynch's books are good too. I see a lot of people here recommending A Random Walk Down Wall Street, which is a good book, but you're going to finish it and say "This investing stuff is too complicated for me. I think I'll just put my money in index funds." Which is perfectly sensible investment advice, but if that's all you want, I can tell you "Go invest in index funds" right now and save you a couple hours of reading. ;-) Jeremy Siegel's Stocks for the Long Run is like Random Walk - it's decent, but the conclusion is basically "go invest in a stock index fund and don't worry about it". I'm not even sure that's great advice right now - he bases a lot of his argument on historical performance, but when an asset class has done well over the recent past, that usually means it'll do poorly in the near future. Read neither or both - Random Walk gives you good perspective for understanding Stocks for the Long Run.…

Here is a good list: http://www.bogleheads.org/readbooks.htm General Investing # The Four Pillars of Investing - by William ("Bill") Bernstein. # Wise Investing Made Simple or The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You'll Ever Need - by Larry Swedroe # The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing - by Taylor Larimore, Mel Lindauer, and Michael LeBoeuf # All About Asset Allocation - by Rick Ferri # The Informed Investor - by Frank Armstrong # The Little Book of Common Sense Investing - by John "Jack" Bogle # The Coffeehouse Investor - by Bill Schultheis. Investor Behavior # Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes And How To Correct Them - by Gary Belsky and Thomas Gilovich # Your Money and Your Brain: How the New Science of Neuroeconomics Can Help Make You Rich - by Jason Zweig # Rational Investing in Irrational Times: How to Avoid the Costly Mistakes Even Smart People Make Today - by Larry Swedroe Financial History # Against the Gods and Capital Ideas - by Peter L. Bernstein # Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation - by Edward Chancellor # A Random Walk Down Wall Street - by Burton Malkiel…

For the shortest introduction to sensible, index-based investing, read The Coffeehouse Investor (Bill Schultheis). It shouldn't take more than an hour or two to go through, and it contains all the basics. Then, if you're interested in a more in-depth analysis of the same thing, read A Random Walk Down Wall Street (Burton Malkiel), as suggested by several others in this thread.