Discover the Ultimate Life-Changing Money Books for Summer 2023. Get Rich Quick!

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Since the holidays are for fun, I have no doubt that your summer reading list is packed with crime novels or Booker Prize winners. But you can also reserve a small portion of reading time for things a little more serious.

happy high status: How to have effortless confidence, by Viv Groskop, is an investment in myself. It’s out June 29 and promises to offer “a new way of thinking about confidence and how you relate to yourself.”

Many friends and I found its prequel, How to own the room: women and the art of speaking brilliantly, enormously useful. He provided essential practical advice to help women, who too often hold back in their careers for not speaking in public, so I hope the sequel is just as brilliant.

Of course, as dedicated readers of FT Money, you’ll also be looking for financial progress, for which there seems to be more offerings than ever.

What they don’t teach you about moneyby FT consumer editor Claer Barrett, avoid the traps that many of the best-selling personal finance books fall into. They are simply catchy titles that state the obvious. However, the best ones, like Claer’s, make eloquent good points and are very attractive to beginners.

The psychology of money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth and Greed and happinessby Morgan Housel, has dominated the best-seller lists since it was published in 2020, and for good reason: His accounts of how people deal with the same financial situation in different ways, with far-reaching results, are fascinating.

Our lives in your folders: Why asset managers own the world, by Brett Christophers, is a more cynical take on the world of finance and investing. A polemic against greed and the short-termism of the asset management industry, it is not an easy read, at times it feels more like a university lecture. It can be a struggle reading poolside in the early days, but once his brain rests, he might be ready to partake in Christophers’ neat dissection of the industry. He reveals how, while he pretends to work for our retirements, he enriches himself disproportionately.

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If not, how about learning more about today’s most pressing issues?

material world: A substantial history of our past and future by Ed Conway discusses our growing appetite for raw materials, discussing sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium, “the six most crucial substances in human history.” Much of this essential material is mined, refined, and processed in distant lands, so it’s out of sight and we forget it’s happening. Read this and you’ll be quick to invest in a commodity fund.

Inflation remains the biggest concern in the world, according to a survey by the Ipsos polling group. Although you may be on holiday where inflation is even worse than in the UK, such as Turkey where the rate is 40 per cent, there are plenty of reasons to worry about what is happening in Britain.

We have to talk about inflation: 14 Urgent Lessons from the Last 2,000 Years, by Stephen D King, feels like my kind of book on inflation. There are plenty of great narratives out there, which clarifies the subject and makes it accessible to non-experts. The author recounts the impact of inflation on his book-selling businesses as a child in the 1970s, and also discusses the hoarding of washing machines (“inflation-proof physical assets”) in the 1990s in Istanbul, as well as as rulers from the Romans to Henry VIII that debased silver coinage.

It’s not just an entertaining tour through history for laymen concerned (or fascinated) by the rising cost of living. The author was the chief economist at HSBC, so there’s plenty for economics scholars too, with conclusions including: “Democratically elected governments can’t help but be tempted by inflation.” The FTs original review he described it as “essential reading for policymakers everywhere.”

A nice bonus is that King provides some simple investment maxims for dealing with inflation, recommending gold “in case we really are in one of those moments in history where inflation persists for an indefinite period.”

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If these books sound like too much hard work, it’s often the less obvious reading that gives us the deepest insights into money.

Crass: The first tycoon, by Peter Stothard, is the story of the richest man in Rome, who died a humiliating death in the desert in search of military glory. As the FT review notes: “Stothard is too subtle to paint direct parallels with the contemporary world. But he doesn’t need to.”

The intertwining of money, ambition, and power is disturbingly familiar, and it’s easy to pick a modern example of a wealthy man playing his financial weight in politics. Also, reading about an obscenely rich tycoon invading a neighboring country whose resilience he doesn’t appreciate feels appropriate in the context of today’s horrible news about Ukraine. That Crassus meets with a catastrophe gives some hope.

The biography is also an allegory for overspending on things we don’t need. After Crassus was killed, some historians say that his open mouth, wrinkled by the desert air, filled with molten gold as a testament to his life of greed.

Regardless of how you interpret the story, there are plenty of meaty themes to contemplate. Crassus at 61 sought a new cachet late in life: Stothard writes that he wanted the campaign to “change the way men saw him”. Maybe it is better to accept the status quo?

copperhead demon, by Barbara Kingsolver, winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, has some good money themes. A masterful recasting of Charles Dickens david copperfield, tells how a boy without assets overcomes overwhelming obstacles to master his destiny. An indictment of child poverty, it also attacks Big Pharma. But it’s a comforting and inspiring read if, despite the sun, sea, or sand, the cost-of-living crisis, greedy financial system, or other money woes make it hard to see how you can become the “hero of your life.” own life”. .

Moira O’Neill is a freelance writer on money and investing. Twitter: @MoiraONeillinstagram @MoiraOnMoneyemail: moira.o’neill@ft.com