Reading 2021

I suppose I read more than most people, but I do see how that's not really saying much given that most people don't really have a reading habit at all beyond reading social media messages and news headlines.

When I look back at what I've read over the years it seems like a fair bit, but only when I take it all in at once; it kind of obfuscates the fact that those years were mostly spent not reading at all, with episodic periods of a month here and month there where I read every day. That I have ended up reading a fair bit is more than anything just a testament to my age - I will be 35 in a couple of months and those intermittent bouts add up to something when you've been around for this long.

There is really a lot at any given time that I plan on reading, and despite that (and sometimes because of that) I often end up reading nothing. This year, I aim to change that. 

My list at this point is quite Financial Economics heavy, but there's a bit of History and Philosophy, I'm putting the list out here for quick reference and also to hold myself accountable. 

As I go through these books, I will share my thoughts on the books on this blog. I don't expect to write book reviews - I don't think I'm qualified to do that - just key takeaways or quick summaries for my own later reference. If there's a book I like a lot, I will praise uncritically, too.

Here's the list:

Finance
Efficiently Inefficient (Lasse Heje Pedersen)*
Fixed Income Securities (Bruce Tuckman)
Fixed Income Relative Value Analysis (Doug Huggins, Christian Schaller)****
Smart Portfolios (Robert Carver)
The Alchemy of Finance (George Soros)
Credit Derivatives (George C. Chacko)***
Distressed Debt Analysis (Stephen G. Moyer)
Expected Returns (Antii Ilmanen)*
King of Capital (David Carey,  John Morris)*****
Buffett: An American Capitalist (Roger Lowenstein)

Economics
Big Debt Crisis (Ray Dalio)
The Changing World Order (Ray Dalio)**
Fault Lines (Raghuram Rajan)*
Poor Economics (Abhijeet Banerjee, Esther Duflo)

Cognitive Psychology and Self-Help
Thinking Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman)*
Misbehaving (Richard Thaler)
Why We Sleep (Matthew Walker)
The Power of Habit (Charles Duhigg)
Atomic Habits (James Clear)
Incognito (David Eagleman)*

Philosophy
Anger (Thich Nhat Hanh)
The Art of Power (Thich Nhat Hanh)
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (Edwin Bryant)
Man's Search For Meaning (Victor Frankl)

History
Guns, Germs and Steel (Jared Diamond)
Sapiens (Yuval Noah Harari)
An Area Of Darkness (VS Naipaul)
The World: An Introduction (Richard Haass)

Mathematics
Learning From Data (Gilbert Strang)

Writing down the list of books was helpful for another reason. It opened me to the possibility that the list may be too long and I would have to prioritize. In particular, it helped me move the following books to stage 2, as it were, in that their turn would only come after I'm done reading each of the books I've listed above:

Economics Rules (Dani Rodrik)
Mastering The Market Cycle (Howard Marks)
The Rise and Fall of Nations (Ruchir Sharma)
Applied Financial Macroeconomics and Investment Strategy (Robert T. McGee)
Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics (Nicholas Wapshott)
Early India (Romila Thapar)

Footnotes:

*These books are ones I've read before, but it's been a while and I want to revisit.
** Preface with CFA L2 Reading 12 and Damodaran YT "Cracking the currency code"
*** Preface with CFA L2 Reading 45
**** Preface with CFA L2 Readings 47-51
***** Follow up with:
Accounting (Damodaran YT Course, CFA L2 Reading 21),
Corporate Finance (CFA L2 Readings 23, 24, 27, Damodaran YT Course),
Equity Valuation (CFA L2 Readings 30-35, Damodaran YT Course 'Valuation')
Equity Investing (Damodaran YT Course 'Investment Philosophies' Sessions 12-21)
Private Equity (CFA L2 Readings 37, 40)