With 1.5 million copies sold, Burton Malkiel's A Random Walk Down Wall Street has long been established as the premiere book to purchase when starting a portfolio.
In addition to classic chapters explaining the folly of past investment epochs, it discusses the full range of investment opportunities and modalities, as well as new material on the Great Recession and the global credit crisis.
As a work on personal finance, it is first-rate. As a summer-time read, it is lively, engaging, and entertaining....adjectives seldom associated with works of this sort.