Best Investment Banking Books
The essential reading list for aspiring investment bankers. 100+ books on M&A, private equity, venture capital, and Wall Street, reviewed with honest recommendations.
Last updated: February 2026
Must-Read Finance Books by Category
Our top 5 picks across M&A, finance, private equity, venture capital, and textbooks
Best M&A and Deals Books
The best way to prepare for deal-related interview questions is to read about real transactions. These books cover legendary M&A battles and the bankers behind them, giving you the context and deal vocabulary that interviewers expect.
Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
by Bryan Burrough & John Helyar
Our Review
The gold standard of Wall Street storytelling. Burrough and Helyar reconstruct the RJR Nabisco LBO with almost absurd precision, and the result is a book that reads more like a thriller than a finance narrative. The competing bids, the egos, the sheer scale of the deal - it all holds up decades later. The middle section on the tobacco business drags a little, but once the bidding war kicks off, you will not want to put it down. A must-read for anyone genuinely interested in how deals get done.
A book that stormed both the bestseller list and the public imagination, a book that created a genre of its own, and a book that gets at the heart of Wall Street and the '80s culture it helped define, Barbarians at the Gate is a modern classic - a masterpiece of investigatory journalism and a rollicking book of corporate derring-do and financial swordsmanship.
Monkey Business: Swinging Through the Wall Street Jungle
by John Rolfe & Peter Troob
Our Review
The funniest book about investment banking ever written. Rolfe and Troob are self-deprecating, sharp, and painfully honest about the reality of being a junior banker at DLJ in the late 90s. Yes, DLJ no longer exists. No, that does not matter. The culture they describe, the all-nighters, the absurd pitchbook requests, the internal politics, is still recognizable today. Read this one purely for entertainment value. You will laugh, you will cringe, and you will understand the lifestyle better than any recruiting brochure could explain it.
A hilarious insider's glimpse behind the scenes of DLJ, one of the hottest investment banks on Wall Street.
Gods at War: Shotgun Takeovers, Government by Deal, and the Private Equity Implosion
by Steven Davidoff
Our Review
This is the most intellectually rigorous book on this list. Davidoff is a law professor, and it shows: he dissects major deals through a legal and strategic lens that most finance books ignore entirely. The chapters on poison pills, hostile takeover defenses, and the government's role in the Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch rescues are particularly strong. Not the easiest read, but if you are the kind of person who wants to understand why deals are structured the way they are, not just what happened, this is the one to pick up.
An engaging exploration of modern-day deals and deal-making
The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Freres & Co.
by William Cohan
Our Review
A 752-page deep dive into the inner workings of Lazard Freres, and somehow it never feels too long. Cohan's reporting is extraordinary. The feuds between Felix Rohatyn and Steve Rattner, the eccentricities of Michel David-Weill, the way the firm operated on relationships and discretion rather than brute capital, it is a portrait of a world that barely exists anymore. If you are drawn to advisory-focused banking and the idea of building long-term client relationships, this book will resonate deeply.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A tale of vaulting ambitions, explosive feuds, worldly mistresses, fabulous art collections, and enormous wealth - a story of high drama in the world of high finance. 'Rips the roof off of one of Wall Street's most storied investment banks.' - Vanity Fair
Greed and Glory on Wall Street: The Fall of the House of Lehman
by Ken Auletta
Our Review
A short, punchy, often overlooked book about the first fall of Lehman Brothers, thirty years before the famous one. Auletta had remarkable access to the key players during the 1984 power struggle between Pete Peterson and Lew Glucksman. The conflict between the trading side and the banking side of the firm is a story that repeats itself across Wall Street, and Auletta captures it with real insight. At under 300 pages, this is an easy weekend read that gives you a perspective on Wall Street culture most people have never encountered.
The inside account of a financial meltdown that reshaped Wall Street
Best Essential Finance Books
These are the foundational texts that every finance professional references throughout their career. From value investing principles to accounts of market crises, these classics build the broad financial literacy that sets strong candidates apart.
The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing
by Benjamin Graham
Our Review
There is a reason Warren Buffett calls this the best book on investing ever written. Graham's framework for thinking about intrinsic value, margin of safety, and the difference between speculation and investment is genuinely foundational. The book is dense in places, and some of the specific security analysis chapters feel dated, but Chapters 8 and 20 alone are worth the price of admission. The Jason Zweig commentary throughout this edition does a great job connecting Graham's ideas to modern markets. Read it slowly, take notes, and come back to it. This is one of those rare books that gets better every time you revisit it.
This classic text is annotated to update Graham's timeless wisdom for today's market conditions.
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
by Michael Lewis
Our Review
Michael Lewis has a gift for making complicated financial mechanics feel like a heist movie, and The Big Short is his best work. He follows a handful of contrarian investors who saw the subprime crisis coming when nobody else did, and through their stories he explains CDOs, credit default swaps, and mortgage-backed securities in a way that is genuinely fun to read. The movie is great, but the book goes deeper on the mechanics and gives you a much better understanding of what actually went wrong. One of the best pieces of financial journalism ever written.
The #1 New York Times bestseller: 'It is the work of our greatest financial journalist, at the top of his game. And it's essential reading.' - Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair.
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
by Edwin Lefevre
Our Review
Written in 1923 and still one of the most relevant books about markets you can read. Livermore's observations about crowd behavior, the temptation to overtrade, and the discipline required to sit on your hands when everyone else is panicking are timeless. It reads like a novel, which is part of its charm. The lessons are more relevant to trading and investing than to banking specifically, but anyone who works in finance should understand market psychology, and nobody has written about it better than Lefevre through Livermore's eyes.
'Reminiscences Of A Stock Operator' is a timeless classic that offers a rare and fascinating glimpse into the world of finance and trading. Written by Edwin Lefevre, this book tells the story of Jesse Livermore, a legendary speculator who rose from humble beginnings to become one of the most successful and infamous traders of his time.
Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System-and Themselves
by Andrew Ross Sorkin
Our Review
The definitive account of the 2008 financial crisis. Sorkin had extraordinary access to the key players, from Hank Paulson to Jamie Dimon to Dick Fuld, and he reconstructs the critical decisions almost in real time. What makes this book special is how it captures the human side of the crisis: the fear, the ego, the political maneuvering. The chapters on the Lehman collapse and the AIG bailout are particularly gripping. It is a long book, but it moves fast because every chapter feels urgent. Essential reading for understanding how interconnected the modern financial system really is.
The brilliantly reported New York Times bestseller that goes behind the scenes of the financial crisis on Wall Street and in Washington to give the definitive account of the crisis, the basis for the HBO film.
The Warren Buffett Way: Investment Strategies of the World's Greatest Investor
by Robert Hagstrom
Our Review
A clear, well-organized breakdown of how Warren Buffett actually thinks about investments. Hagstrom walks through Buffett's major bets and explains the reasoning behind each one, including his business tenets, financial tenets, and management tenets. It is less philosophical than The Intelligent Investor and more practical, focused on how Buffett applies value investing principles to specific companies. If you have already read Graham, this is the natural next step. A quick read at under 300 pages, and a useful framework for organizing your own thinking about what makes a business worth investing in.
'Simply the most important new stock book of the 1990s, to date. Buy it and read it.' - Kenneth L. Fisher Forbes
Best Private Equity Books
If you are targeting private equity or want to understand how buyouts actually work, these books take you inside the firms and deals that shaped the industry. They cover everything from LBO mechanics to the personalities driving billion-dollar transactions.
King of Capital: The Remarkable Rise, Fall and Rise Again of Steve Schwarzman & Blackstone
by David Carey & John Edward Morris
Our Review
The best book for understanding how a private equity firm actually works, not just the deals but the business model itself. Carey and Morris trace Blackstone from its founding with $400,000 to its position as one of the largest alternative asset managers in the world, and they explain fund economics, deal sourcing, operational improvements, and exits with real clarity. Schwarzman comes across as relentless and deeply competitive, which makes the founding story genuinely compelling. If you want to understand how PE firms make money, start here.
The story of Steve Schwarzman, Blackstone, and a financial revolution, King of Capital is the greatest untold success story on Wall Street.
The New Tycoons: Inside the Trillion Dollar Private Equity Industry That Owns Everything
by Jason Kelly
Our Review
A solid overview of the major PE firms and the people who built them. Kelly profiles KKR, Blackstone, Carlyle, TPG, and Apollo, and does a good job explaining the competitive dynamics between them and how the industry evolved from a controversial niche into a mainstream asset class. It is broader than King of Capital but less deep on any single firm. Best read as a complement to the other books on this list rather than as a standalone. You will come away with a good sense of the landscape and the key personalities.
What do Dunkin' Donuts, J. Crew, Toys 'R' Us, and Burger King have in common? They are all currently or just recently were owned, operated, and controlled by private equity firms. The New Tycoons: Inside the Trillion Dollar Private Equity Industry That Owns Everything takes the reader behind the scenes of these firms: their famous billionaire founders, the overlapping stories of their creation and evolution, and the outsized ambitions that led a group of clever bankers from small shops operating in a corner of Wall Street into powerhouse titans of capital.
The Predators' Ball: The Inside Story of Drexel Burnham and the Rise of the Junk Bond
by Connie Bruck
Our Review
This book is essential context for understanding why leveraged buyouts exist in their current form. Without Michael Milken and his junk bond machine at Drexel Burnham, the PE industry as we know it would not exist. Bruck's reporting is excellent, and her portrait of Milken is genuinely fascinating: a brilliant financial innovator who built an entire market from a trading desk and then watched it collapse around him. The connection between high-yield debt and LBO financing clicks in a way that no textbook can replicate. Reads faster than you would expect for 400 pages.
'Connie Bruck traces the rise of this empire with vivid metaphors and with a smooth command of high finance's terminology.' - The New York Times
Den of Thieves
by James Brewer Stewart
Our Review
Part financial history, part legal thriller. Stewart won a Pulitzer for this book, and it is easy to see why. The insider trading ring involving Milken, Boesky, Siegel, and Levine is a genuinely wild story, and Stewart traces the investigation and prosecution with incredible detail. It is less about deal mechanics and more about the culture of the 1980s deal-making era, the lines that were crossed, and the consequences. A great read on its own merits, and also valuable context for understanding the regulatory environment that shapes the industry today.
A #1 bestseller from coast to coast, Den of Thieves tells the full story of the insider-trading scandal that nearly destroyed Wall Street, the men who pulled it off, and the chase that finally brought them to justice.
Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
by Bryan Burrough & John Helyar
Our Review
This book appears on the M&A list as well, and it deserves to be on both. From a private equity perspective, what makes it essential is the financing structure of the deal, the management buyout dynamics, and the competitive bidding between KKR, the management group, and other players. The RJR Nabisco LBO was the moment private equity went from a relatively obscure corner of finance to front-page news. Burrough and Helyar tell the story with precision and energy, and the deal remains one of the most instructive case studies in buyout history.
A book that stormed both the bestseller list and the public imagination, a book that created a genre of its own, and a book that gets at the heart of Wall Street and the '80s culture it helped define, Barbarians at the Gate is a modern classic - a masterpiece of investigatory journalism and a rollicking book of corporate derring-do and financial swordsmanship.
Best Venture Capital Books
Understanding venture capital broadens your perspective beyond traditional banking. These books explain how VC firms evaluate startups, structure deals, and build portfolios, which is increasingly relevant as banks compete with growth-stage investors.
Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist
by Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson
Our Review
The most practically useful VC book that exists. Feld and Mendelson go line by line through real term sheets and explain what every clause actually means: anti-dilution provisions, liquidation preferences, pro-rata rights, board composition, all of it. It is structured more like a reference manual than a narrative, which makes it less fun to read cover to cover but incredibly useful when you need to understand a specific deal mechanic. If you are serious about understanding how venture financing actually works, this is the book to start with.
Help take your startup to the next step with the new and revised edition of the popular book on the VC deal process - from the co-founders of the Foundry Group
Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It
by Scott Kupor
Our Review
Kupor gives you the Andreessen Horowitz perspective on how VCs evaluate investments, and since a16z has basically redefined how modern VC firms operate, that perspective matters. The strongest chapters are the ones where he explains the mental model behind investment decisions: how VCs think about market size, team quality, and competitive dynamics. It gets a bit self-promotional in places, but the fundraising strategy chapters are genuinely excellent and the institutional perspective is something you rarely get from other VC books.
What are venture capitalists saying about your startup behind closed doors? And what can you do to influence that conversation?
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
by Peter Thiel
Our Review
Short, contrarian, and full of ideas that will change how you think about business. Thiel's core argument, that real value comes from creating something new rather than competing in existing markets, is more nuanced than most people give it credit for. His framework for evaluating startups around monopoly potential, proprietary technology, and network effects is genuinely useful. At 224 pages it is an easy read, and the ideas are the kind that stick with you long after you finish. Probably the most thought-provoking book on this list.
WHAT VALUABLE COMPANY IS NOBODY BUILDING?
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
by Ben Horowitz
Our Review
The most honest book about running a company you will find anywhere. Horowitz writes about the parts of leadership that nobody likes to talk about: firing your friends, making impossible decisions with no good options, nearly going bankrupt, and somehow keeping a team together through all of it. It is raw, practical, and surprisingly funny. Beyond the startup world, this book is valuable for anyone who wants to understand what separates great management teams from average ones, which is ultimately what investing is about, whether you are in VC, PE, or banking.
Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley's most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, offers essential advice on building and running a startup - practical wisdom for managing the toughest problems business school doesn't cover, based on his popular ben's blog.
VC: An American History
by Tom Nicholas
Our Review
An academic history of venture capital that traces the industry's roots all the way back to 19th-century whaling voyages. That sounds dry, but Nicholas draws genuinely fascinating parallels between early risk capital ventures and modern Silicon Valley. The core insight, that the fundamental dynamics of VC (high risk tolerance, portfolio diversification, faith in innovation) have remained remarkably consistent across centuries, gives you a much deeper understanding of why the model works. The most intellectually ambitious book on this list, and one that rewards patient reading.
"An incisive history of the venture-capital industry." - New Yorker
Best Investment Banking Textbooks
When you need to learn valuation methodologies, LBO modeling, or M&A analysis in detail, these are the textbooks that investment banking analysts and associates actually use on the job. They are essential references for technical interview preparation.
The Art of M&A, Fifth Edition: A Merger, Acquisition, and Buyout Guide
by Stanley Foster Reed, Alexandra Lajoux, H. Peter Nesvold
Our Review
At 1,264 pages, this is not a book you read cover to cover. It is a reference you keep on your desk and consult when you encounter a deal structure or legal issue you have not seen before. The Q&A format is surprisingly effective: you can look up a specific topic like cross-border M&A considerations or earnout structures and get a direct, practical answer. The chapters on due diligence and post-merger integration are particularly strong. This is the kind of book that becomes more valuable the further you get into your career.
Make every deal a major win! The M&A classic has been updated for today's business landscape
Mergers and Acquisitions from A to Z
by Andrew Sherman
Our Review
The most underrated M&A textbook on this list. Sherman writes like a practitioner, not a professor. You get checklists, sample documents, and step-by-step walkthroughs of how deals actually close. The 2023 edition covers the latest regulatory developments and is surprisingly current. It does not go as deep on valuation as Rosenbaum and Pearl, but it covers the practical execution side of transactions better than anything else out there. A strong first read before moving on to heavier technical material.
Walks you through every step of the process - from valuation to securities laws to closing and successful integration.
Investment Banking: Valuation, LBOs, M&A, and IPOs
by Joshua Rosenbaum & Joshua Pearl
Our Review
The industry standard for IB technical training. Rosenbaum and Pearl walk through comparable company analysis, precedent transactions, DCF modeling, and LBO modeling step by step, with real examples and downloadable models. Nearly every analyst training program at a major bank uses this book or something directly derived from it. It is a reference book, not a narrative, so the best way to use it is to work through the models with Excel open in front of you. Passively reading it will not build the muscle memory you need.
An essential, all-in-one guide to investment banking and valuation, complete with downloadable models - this new edition reflects valuable contributions from Nasdaq and the global law firm Latham & Watkins LLP plus access to the online valuation models and course.
Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies
by Tim Koller, Marc Goedhart, David Wessels
Our Review
The most rigorous valuation textbook available. McKinsey's Valuation goes deeper than Rosenbaum and Pearl on the theoretical foundations: why WACC works the way it does, why terminal value assumptions matter so much, why certain multiples can be misleading. At 896 pages it is a serious commitment, but the depth of analysis is unmatched. Best read after you already have a working understanding of the basic methodologies, as it takes you from knowing how to build a DCF to actually understanding the principles behind it.
McKinsey & Company's #1 best-selling guide to corporate valuation - the fully updated seventh edition
The Dark Side of Valuation: Valuing Young, Distressed, and Complex Businesses
by Aswath Damodaran
Our Review
Damodaran tackles the valuation problems that standard textbooks tend to skip: pre-revenue startups, distressed companies with negative cash flows, cyclical businesses, financial institutions, emerging market firms. His framework for adapting traditional valuation methods to these difficult cases is genuinely original and practical. The writing is more academic than the other books on this list, but the case studies and worked examples keep it grounded. If you plan to work in sectors where standard valuation approaches break down, this book will give you tools that most of your peers will not have.
The Definitive Guide to Valuing Hard-to-Value Companies: Fully Revised for Today's Financial Markets
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After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response, and the Work Ahead
by Alan Blinder
'Blinder's book deserves its likely place near the top of reading lists about the crisis. It is the best comprehensive history of the episode... A riveting tale.' - Financial Times
Alan Greenspan''s The Age of Turbulence is the essential guide to what is happening in the world, and where we''re heading, from the ultimate expert.
The inside story of the world’s most powerful central bankers—and the most intense exercise in economic crisis management the world has ever seen
All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis
by Bethany McLean & Joe Nocera
Hailed as 'the best business book of 2010' (Huffington Post), this New York Times bestseller about the 2008 financial crisis brings the devastation of the Great Recession to life.
The Art of M&A, Fifth Edition: A Merger, Acquisition, and Buyout Guide
by Stanley Foster Reed, Alexandra Lajoux, H. Peter Nesvold
Make every deal a major win! The M&A classic has been updated for today’s business landscape
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NATIONAL BESTSELLER The gripping story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos—one of the biggest corporate frauds in history—a tale of ambition and hubris set amid the bold promises of Silicon Valley, rigorously reported by the prize-winning journalist. With a new Afterword covering her trial and sentencing, bringing the story to a close.
The Bank That Lived a Little: Barclays in the Age of the Very Free Market
by Philip Augar
Based on unparalleled access to those involved, and told with compelling pace and drama, The Bank that Lived a Little describes three decades of boardroom intrigue at one of Britain's biggest financial institutions. In a tale of feuds, grandiose dreams and a struggle for supremacy between rival strategies and their adherents, Philip Augar gives a riveting account of Barclays' journey from an old Quaker bank to a full-throttle capitalist machine. The disagreement between those ambitious for Barclays to join the top table of global banks, and those preferring a smaller domestic role more in keeping with the bank's traditions, cost three chief executives their jobs and continues to divide opinion within Barclays, the City and beyond. This is an extraordinary corporate thriller, which among much else describes how Barclays came to buy Lehman Brothers for a bargain price in 2008, why it was so keen to avoid taking government funding during the financial crisis, and the price shareholders have paid for a decade of barely controlled ambition. But Augar also shows how Barclays' experiences are a paradigm for Britain's social and economic life over 30 years, which saw the City move from the edge of the economy to its very center. These decades created unprecedented prosperity for a tiny number, and made the reputations of governments and individuals but then left many of them in tatters. The leveraged society, the winner-takes-all mentality and our present era of austerity can all be traced to the influence of banks such as Barclays. Augar's book tells this rollercoaster story from the perspective of many of its participants—and also of those affected by the grip they came to have on Britain.
Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
by Bryan Burrough & John Helyar
A book that stormed both the bestseller list and the public imagination, a book that created a genre of its own, and a book that gets at the heart of Wall Street and the '80s culture it helped define, Barbarians at the Gate is a modern classic—a masterpiece of investigatory journalism and a rollicking book of corporate derring-do and financial swordsmanship.
The #1 New York Times bestseller: 'It is the work of our greatest financial journalist, at the top of his game. And it's essential reading.'―Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair.
Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World
by Tom Wright & Bradley Hope
Named a Best Book of 2018 by the Financial Times and Fortune, this 'thrilling' (Bill Gates) New York Times bestseller exposes how a 'modern Gatsby' swindled over $5 billion with the aid of Goldman Sachs in 'the heist of the century' (Axios).
Billionaires' Row: Tycoons, High Rollers, and the Epic Race to Build the World's Most Exclusive Skyscrapers
by Katherine Clarke
A “thrilling” (Financial Times) fly-on-the-wall account of the ferocious ambition, greed, and one-upmanship behind the most expensive real estate in the world: the new Manhattan megatowers known as Billionaires’ Row—from a staff reporter at The Wall Street Journal
Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street
by Sheelah Kolhatkar
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—The New York Times and The Economist “An essential exposé of our times—a work that reveals the deep rot in our financial system... Everyone should read this book.” —David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon
Black Horse Ride: The Inside Story of Lloyds and the Banking Crisis
by Ivan Fallon
Longlisted for the FT and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award 2015
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Black Swan is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, Antifragile, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes.
Why do stock and housing markets sometimes experience amazing booms followed by massive busts and why is this happening more and more frequently? In order to answer these questions, William Quinn and John D. Turner take us on a riveting ride through the history of financial bubbles, visiting, among other places, Paris and London in 1720, Latin America in the 1820s, Melbourne in the 1880s, New York in the 1920s, Tokyo in the 1980s, Silicon Valley in the 1990s and Shanghai in the 2000s. As they do so, they help us understand why bubbles happen, and why some have catastrophic economic, social and political consequences whilst others have actually benefited society. They reveal that bubbles start when investors and speculators react to new technology or political initiatives, showing that our ability to predict future bubbles will ultimately come down to being able to predict these sparks.
The Buy Side: A Wall Street Trader's Tale of Spectacular Excess
by Turney Duff
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A former Galleon Group trader portrays an after-hours Wall Street culture where drugs and sex are rampant and billions in trading commissions flow to those who dangle the most enticements.
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CITYBOY is Geraint Anderson''s bestselling exposé of life in the City of London.
Widely respected and admired, Philip Fisher is among the most influential investors of all time. His investment philosophies, introduced almost forty years ago, are not only studied and applied by today's financiers and investors, but are also regarded by many as gospel. This book is invaluable reading and has been since it was first published in 1958. The updated paperback retains the investment wisdom of the original edition and includes the perspectives of the author's son Ken Fisher, an investment guru in his own right in an expanded preface and introduction.
Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World
by Adam Tooze
'Majestic, informative and often delightful ... insights on every page' Yanis Varoufakis, Observer
The Curse of Cash: How Large-Denomination Bills Aid Crime and Tax Evasion and Constrain Monetary
by Kenneth Rogoff
“A brilliant and lucid new book” (John Lanchester, New York Times Magazine) about why paper money and digital currencies lie at the heart of many of the world’s most difficult problems―and their solutions.
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The Dark Side of Valuation: Valuing Young, Distressed, and Complex Businesses
by Aswath Damodaran
The Definitive Guide to Valuing Hard-to-Value Companies: Fully Revised for Today’s Financial Markets
A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation
by Richard Bookstaber
Inside markets, innovation, and risk
A #1 bestseller from coast to coast, Den of Thieves tells the full story of the insider-trading scandal that nearly destroyed Wall Street, the men who pulled it off, and the chase that finally brought them to justice.
Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money
by Nathaniel Popper
A New York Times technology and business reporter charts the dramatic rise of Bitcoin and the fascinating personalities who are striving to create a new global money for the Internet age.
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Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud
by Ben McKenzie & Jacob Silverman
“A smart, savvy road map through the mayhem of the cryptocurrency madness.”—Ron Chernow, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Alexander Hamilton
The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America
by Lawrence Cunningham
A modern classic, The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America is the book Buffett autographs most and likes best. Its popularity and longevity over three decades attest to the widespread appetite for this definitive statement of Mr. Buffett’s thoughts that’s uniquely comprehensive, non-repetitive, and digestible. New and experienced readers alike will gain an invaluable informal education by perusing this classic arrangement of Mr. Buffett's best writings.
Extreme Money: Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk
by Satyajit Das
The human race created money and finance: then, our inventions recreated us. In Extreme Money, best-selling author and global finance expert Satyajit Das tells how this happened and what it means. Das reveals the spectacular, dangerous money games that are generating increasingly massive bubbles of fake growth, prosperity, and wealth--while endangering the jobs, possessions, and futures of virtually everyone outside finance.
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Long-listed for the FT & Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2011
Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy
by Raghuram Rajan
From an economist who warned of the global financial crisis, a new warning about the continuing peril to the world economy
Firefighting: The Financial Crisis and Its Lessons
by Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, Henry Paulson Jr
'Should be required reading for all policy makers.' —Warren Buffett
Four years after his #1 bestseller The Big Short, Michael Lewis returns to Wall Street to report on a high-tech predator stalking the equity markets.
Flash Crash: A Trading Savant, a Global Manhunt and the Most Mysterious Market Crash in History
by Liam Vaughan
’Not just a readable, pacey account of an extraordinary individual and his quixotic quest... but also a troubling exposé of the fragility of our entire financial system … I loved it’ Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Fooled by Randomness is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are The Black Swan, Antifragile, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes.
Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit
by Charles Calomiris & Stephen Haber
Why stable banking systems are so rare
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Gods at War: Shotgun Takeovers, Government by Deal, and the Private Equity Implosion
by Steven Davidoff
An engaging exploration of modern-day deals and deal-making
Greed and Glory on Wall Street: The Fall of the House of Lehman
by Ken Auletta
The inside account of a financial meltdown that reshaped Wall Street
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The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
by Ben Horowitz
Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley's most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, offers essential advice on building and running a startup—practical wisdom for managing the toughest problems business school doesn’t cover, based on his popular ben’s blog.
he Private Equity Toolkit: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Deals Done from Sourcing to Exit
by Tamara Sakovska
Master the navigation of private equity deals from sourcing to exit with this comprehensive guide
Rare is the opportunity to chat with a legendary financial figure and hear the unvarnished truth about what really goes on behind the scenes. Hedgehogging represents just such an opportunity, allowing you to step inside the world of Wall Street with Barton Biggs as he discusses investing in general, hedge funds in particular, and how he has learned to find and profit from the best moneymaking opportunities in an eat-what-you-kill, cutthroat investment world.
The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: How Risk Taking Transforms Us, Body and Mind
by John Coates
“Brilliant.” —David Brooks, The New York Times
House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street
by William Cohan
A blistering narrative account of the negligence and greed that pushed all of Wall Street into chaos and the country into a financial crisis.
“Why do big projects go wrong so often, and are there any lessons you can use when renovating your kitchen? Bent Flyvbjerg is the ‘megaproject’ expert and Dan Gardner brings the storytelling skills to How Big Things Get Done, with examples ranging from a Jimi Hendrix studio to the Sydney Opera House.”—Financial Times
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
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“Whatever it takes”
The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing
by Benjamin Graham
This classic text is annotated to update Graham's timeless wisdom for today's market conditions.
Investment Banking: Valuation, LBOs, M&A, and IPOs
by Joshua Rosenbaum & Joshua Pearl
An essential, all-in-one guide to investment banking and valuation, complete with downloadable models – this new edition reflects valuable contributions from Nasdaq and the global law firm Latham & Watkins LLP plus access to the online valuation models and course.
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Keeping At It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government
by Paul A Volcker & Christine Harper
The extraordinary life story of the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, whose absolute integrity provides the inspiration we need as our constitutional system and political tradition are being tested to the breaking point.
The Key Man: The True Story of How the Global Elite Was Duped by a Capitalist Fairy Tale
by Simon Clark & Will Louch
In this compelling story of lies, greed and tarnished idealism, two Wall Street Journal reporters investigate a man who Bill Gates, Western governments, and other investors entrusted with billions of dollars to make profits and end poverty, but who now stands accused of masterminding one of the biggest, most brazen financial frauds ever.
King of Capital : The Remarkable Rise, Fall and Rise Again of Steve Schwarzman & Blackstone
by David Carey & John Edward Morris
The story of Steve Schwarzman, Blackstone, and a financial revolution, King of Capital is the greatest untold success story on Wall Street.
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The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co.
by William Cohan
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A tale of vaulting ambitions, explosive feuds, worldly mistresses, fabulous art collections, and enormous wealth—a story of high drama in the world of high finance. • 'Rips the roof off of one of Wall Street's most storied investment banks.' —Vanity Fair
Lessons from Private Equity Any Company Can Use (Memo to the CEO)
by Orit Gadiesh & Hugh Macarthur
Private equity firms are snapping up brand-name companies and assembling portfolios that make them immense global conglomerates. They're often able to maximize investor value far more successfully than traditional public companies.
Two years in MBA school won't teach you how to double the market's return. Two hours with The Little Book That Beats the Market will.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
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M&A Integration: How To Do It. Planning and delivering M&A integration for business success
by Danny Davis
Most firms of a certain size will turn to Mergers & Acquisitions in their search for growth, forcing almost all managers to face up to the challenge of integration at some point in their career. For many managers it is often their first and only time, and M&A integration is high on the list of things that many managers need to learn more about. According to many studies, 50 to 75% M&A transactions fail to deliver their expected value. One of the main reasons for failure is late or wrong integration, or bad integration management. There is a significant demand for more information on best practice in Post-Merger Integration.
Make the Deal: Negotiating Mergers and Acquisitions
by Christopher Harrison
A comprehensive introduction to today's M&A strategies
Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business
by Rana Foroohar
Is Wall Street bad for Main Street America?
A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market
by Edward Thorp
The incredible true story of the card-counting mathematics professor who taught the world how to beat the dealer and, as the first of the great quantitative investors, ushered in a revolution on Wall Street.
The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan
by Sebastian Mallaby
The definitive biography of the most important economic statesman of our time
The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution
by Gregory Zuckerman
The unbelievable story of a secretive mathematician who pioneered the era of the algorithm–and made $23 billion doing it.
The world's top trader's reveal the secrets of their phenomenal success!
The Masters of Private Equity and Venture Capital
by Walter Finkel & David Greising
Ten Leading private investors share theirsecrets to maximum profitability
Walks you through every step of the process—from valuation to securities laws to closing and successful integration.
Mergers and Acquisitions Playbook: Lessons from the Middle-Market Trenches
by Mark A. Filippelli
The ultimate 'tricks of the trade' guide to mergers and acquisitions
Mergers, Acquisitions, and Corporate Restructurings
by Patrick A. Gaughan
The essential M&A primer, updated with the latest research and statistics
Money Men: A Hot Startup, A Billion Dollar Fraud, A Fight for the Truth
by Dan McCrum
This is the stranger-than-fiction story of Wirecard, once a $30 billion tech darling, now a smoldering wreck, by the journalist who brought it crashing down, for lovers of Bad Blood and The Billion Dollar Whale.
Monkey Business: Swinging Through the Wall Street Jungle
by John Rolfe & Peter Troob
A hilarious insider's glimpse behind the scenes of DLJ, one of the hottest investment banks on Wall Street.
More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite
by Sebastian Mallaby
“The bright light shed by More Money Than God is particularly welcome. Mr. Mallaby... brings a keen sense of financial theory to his subject and a vivid narrative style.” —Wall Street Journal
The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for The Thoughtful Investor
by Howard Marks
Legendary investor Howard Marks is chairman and co-founder of Oaktree Capital Management, which has $100 billion under management. He is sought out by the world''s leading value investors and his client memos brim with insightful commentary and a time-tested, fundamental philosophy. Now for the first time, readers can benefit from Mark''s wisdom, concentrated into a single lifetime of experience and study, The Most Important Thing explains the keys to successful investment and the pitfalls that can destroy capital or ruin a career. Utilising passages from his memos to illustrate his ideas, Marks teaches by example, detailing the development of an investment philosophy that fully acknowledges the complexities of investing and the perils of the financial world. Brilliantly applying insight to today''s volatile markets, Marks offers a volume that is part memoir, part creed, with a number of broad takeaways.
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Narrative and Numbers: The Value of Stories in Business
by Aswath Damodaran
How can a company that has never turned a profit have a multibillion dollar valuation? Why do some start-ups attract large investments while others do not? Aswath Damodaran, finance professor and experienced investor, argues that the power of story drives corporate value, adding substance to numbers and persuading even cautious investors to take risks. In business, there are the storytellers who spin compelling narratives and the number-crunchers who construct meaningful models and accounts. Both are essential to success, but only by combining the two, Damodaran argues, can a business deliver and sustain value.
The New Market Wizards: Conversations with America's Top Traders
by Jack Schwager
In The New Market Wizards, successful traders relate the financial strategies that have rocketed them to success. Asking questions that readers with an interest or involvement in the financial markets would love to pose to the financial superstars, Jack D. Schwager encourages these financial wizards to share their insights. Entertaining, informative, and invaluable, The New Market Wizards is destined to become another Schwager classic.
The New Tycoons : Inside the Trillion Dollar Private Equity Industry That Owns Everything
by Jason Kelly
What do Dunkin' Donuts, J. Crew, Toys 'R' Us, and Burger King have in common? They are all currently or just recently were owned, operated, and controlled by private equity firms. The New Tycoons: Inside the Trillion Dollar Private Equity Industry That Owns Everything takes the reader behind the scenes of these firms: their famous billionaire founders, the overlapping stories of their creation and evolution, and the outsized ambitions that led a group of clever bankers from small shops operating in a corner of Wall Street into powerhouse titans of capital. This is the story of the money and the men who handle it.
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Octopus: Sam Israel, the Secret Market, and Wall Street's Wildest Con
by Guy Lawson
Born into one of America's most illustrious trading families, Sam Israel was determined to strike out on his own. After apprenticing with one of the greatest traders of the 1980s, he founded his own fast-growing hedge fund, promising investors extraordinary returns.
One Up On Wall Street: How To Use What You Already Know To Make Money In The Market
by Peter Lynch
More than one million copies have been sold of this seminal book on investing in which legendary mutual-fund manager Peter Lynch explains the advantages that average investors have over professionals and how they can use these advantages to achieve financial success.
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Longlisted for the 2012 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award
Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger
by Charlie Munger
From the legendary vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, lessons in investment strategy, philanthropy, and living a rational and ethical life.
Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility
by Patty McCord
Named by The Washington Post as one of the 11 Leadership Books to Read in 2018
The Predators' Ball: The Inside Story of Drexel Burnham and the Rise of the Junk Bond
by Connie Bruck
'Connie Bruck traces the rise of this empire with vivid metaphors and with a smooth command of high finance’s terminology.' —The New York Times
A comprehensive and profoundly relevant history of interest from one of the world’s leading financial writers, The Price of Time explains our current global financial position and how we got here
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * 5 MILLION COPIES SOLD
The Private Equity Playbook: Management's Guide to Working with Private Equity
by Adam Coffey
Private equity firms are on the rise and rapidly changing the game. Today more than 5,500 P.E. firms own tens of thousands of companies, so it is essential for CEOs and senior management executives to understand exactly how private equity firms operate. This invaluable resource can help you devise a winning P.E. game plan for the sale of your own company that offers you greater freedom and financial success. CEO Adam Coffey has almost twenty years of experience building businesses for private equity companies. In this authoritative yet approachable handbook, he covers:· The history and landscape of private equity· Ground rules for finding the right firm to partner with· Techniques for navigating the new governance· Strategies for continued growth in the private equity space· And more.The Private Equity Playbook provides all the coaching you’ll need to compete and win on this new playing field.
The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness
by Morgan Housel
OVER 7 MILLION COPIES SOLD AROUND THE WORLD… The Psychology of Money is the original bestselling classic from the author of the new book, Same as Ever.
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Quality Investing: Owning the Best Companies for the Long Term
by Lawrence Cunningham, Torkell T. Eide, Patrick Hargreaves
Quality. We all make judgments about it every day. Yet articulating a clear definition of quality in an investing context is challenging. This book addresses the challenge, and distills years of practical investing experience into a definitive account of this under-explored investment philosophy.
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A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Best Investment Guide That Money Can Buy
by Burton Malkiel
“A must-read for any investor.”―Browser
A renowned Harvard professor debunks prevailing orthodoxy with a new intellectual foundation and a practical pathway forward for a system that has lost its moral and ethical foundation.
'Reminiscences Of A Stock Operator' is a timeless classic that offers a rare and fascinating glimpse into the world of finance and trading. Written by Edwin Lefevre, this book tells the story of Jesse Livermore, a legendary speculator who rose from humble beginnings to become one of the most successful and infamous traders of his time.
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Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It
by Scott Kupor
What are venture capitalists saying about your startup behind closed doors? And what can you do to influence that conversation?
Security Analysis, Seventh Edition: Principles and Techniques
by Benjamin Graham & David L. Dodd
The classic work from the “father of value investing”―fully updated for today’s generation of investors
This is the definitive account of the Royal Bank of Scotland scandal.
The Spider Network: The Wild Story of a Math Genius, a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers, and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History
by David Enrich
The Wall Street Journal's award-winning business reporter unveils the bizarre and sinister story of how a math genius named Tom Hayes, a handful of outrageous confederates, and a deeply corrupt banking system ignited one of the greatest financial scandals in history. The paperback edition includes a new chapter discussing further fallout from the scandal.
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Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System-and Themselves
by Andrew Ross Sorkin
The brilliantly reported New York Times bestseller that goes behind the scenes of the financial crisis on Wall Street and in Washington to give the definitive account of the crisis, the basis for the HBO film.
Traders, Guns and Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives
by Satyajit Das
Traders Guns and Money is a wickedly comic exposé of the culture, games and pure deceptions played out every day in trading rooms around the world. And played out with other people’s money.
A “vivid” (Financial Times) rags-to-riches memoir that takes readers inside the high-stakes drama and hubris of the trading floor, a “darkly funny” (Guardian) tale of Citibank’s one-time most profitable trader, and why he gave it all up
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Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies
by Tim Koller, Marc Goedhart, David Wessels
McKinsey & Company's #1 best-selling guide to corporate valuation―the fully updated seventh edition
Explore the modern extension of value investing in this essential text from 'the guru to Wall Street’s gurus'
The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy
by Mariana Mazzucato
Who really creates wealth in our world? And how do we decide the value of what they do? At the heart of today''s financial and economic crisis is a problem hiding in plain sight.
“An incisive history of the venture-capital industry.” ―New Yorker
Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist
by Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson
Help take your startup to the next step with the new and revised edition of the popular book on the VC deal process―from the co-founders of the Foundry Group
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The Warren Buffett Way: Investment Strategies of the World's Greatest Investor
by Robert Hagstrom
'Simply the most important new stock book of the 1990s, to date. Buy it and read it.' -Kenneth L. Fisher Forbes
When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management
by Roger Lowenstein
“A riveting account that reaches beyond the market landscape to say something universal about risk and triumph, about hubris and failure.”—The New York Times
The Wisdom Of Finance: Discovering Humanity in the World of Risk and Return
by Mihir Desai
'Entertaining and informative. Desai takes us on a journey through the fundamentals of finance, from asset pricing to risk and risk management, via options, mergers, debt, and bankruptcy.' - John Lanchester, The New Yorker
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You Can Be a Stock Market Genius: Uncover the Secret Hiding Places of Stock Market Profits
by Joel Greenblatt
A comprehensive and practical guide to the stock market from a successful fund manager—filled with case studies, important background information, and all the tools you’ll need to become a stock market genius.
Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street's Post-Crash Recruits
by Kevin Roose
Becoming a young Wall Street banker is like pledging the world's most lucrative and soul-crushing fraternity.
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Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
by Peter Thiel
WHAT VALUABLE COMPANY IS NOBODY BUILDING?
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