Best Investment Books for Beginners

Oftentimes as we're learning about finance and investment we see all these offers that sound appealing. Systems to help make us rich in a very short amount of time. Before you should even consider looking at these kinds of offers, you need to shore up your understandings of the absolute basics. Ignore day trading and options until you have a real understanding of the purpose and workings of the markets. Here are some books that can give you a broad understanding of the world of investing:

One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch - Everyone from investment bankers to those with no experience can learn from this book. It is a great first read to give readers insight into the basics of finance and how to think about it. If you haven't read this I highly recommend it.

The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom by Suze Orman - The primary strength of this book is the breadth of topics it covers and it's strength in talking to those without much experience. If you're struggling to figure out where to begin learning about your finances and investing, this is a great choice.

Those two books can give you great underpinning for the world of investment. Many will recommend you read books like Graham and Dodd's Security Analysis and books of this kind. While they are fantastic books they are usually not the best places to start for beginners. Once you have developed an understanding of the basics, proceed to the more complex books like Graham and Dodd. Additionally if you'd like a more basic understanding of the field of economics, I highly recommend Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics. While he has gained a reputation as a bit of a partisan in his other works, this book is a fantastic way to really understand how the economy works and is relatively unbiased.

Be very careful about what books you select as they can really impact your view of the financial world. Starting with Lynch and Orman can really give you a grounding from which to explore.

For Those Who Like Free

I'm a bootstrapper. I'm very dubious of a lot of offers so I have a habit of piecing together information from free sources (like this site.) If you'd like some free resources, you should check out INO.TV. Once you sign up you can watch several videos on the markets and get a bit of information for free. While it will almost assuredly be over your head, you may learn some information via osmosis. You can also come back and watch the videos later. This can give you a good, FREE head-start and you may eventually want to get access to all of INO's tools. I'd still get the books listed above though.