Ten Books, EDITED

NOTE: I idiotically forgot George Soros from the first list. He easily belongs in the top 10. I've revised below.

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/03/books-which-have-influenced-me-most.html
Tyler Cowen started a "which 10 books have influenced me most" blogging trend, and many people have followed. Though not nearly as accomplished as Mr Cowen, I'm going to do the same thing. I've already posted a reading list, found at http://tfideas.blogspot.com/2009/05/reading-list.html, but it's old and I've read a great deal beyond that since then (though many of the top choices haven't changed).

 The final list:
1. Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters, Warren Buffett. How I learned business theory.
2. Common Stocks, Uncommon Profits, Philip Arthur Fisher. How I learned investment research.
3. Influence, Robert Cialdini. How I learned about behavioral psychology.
4. Dialogues, Plato. How I learned logic and argument structure.
5. Democracy in America, De Tocqueville. How I learned about American government.
6. Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill. How I learned the advantages and disadvantages of a "quantitative" philosophy.
7. The Elements of Style, Strunk and White. How I learned prose.
8. The Complete Works of Shakespeare, William Shakespeare. How I learned about evocative language.
9. The Alchemy of Finance, George Soros. How I learned about booms and busts, currency theory and making smart bets.
10. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo. How I evaluate the quality of writing, and gave a framework for religious morality without a necessary direct religion.

 

My top 8 9 was easy:

1. Influence, Robert Cialdini.
2. Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters, Warren Buffett.
3. Common Stocks, Uncommon Profits, Philip Arthur Fisher.
4. Dialogues, Plato.
5. Democracy in America, De Tocqueville.
6. Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill.
7. The Elements of Style, Strunk and White.
8. The Complete Works of Shakespeare, William Shakespeare.
9. The Alchemy of Finance, George Soros


The last two were one was much harder. Selected from:
The Bible (the basis of Western morality)
The Prince/Discourses on Titus Livy (Niccolo Machiavelli) (political incentives)
Les Miserables (Victor Hugo) (made me appreciate good writing, because it's the most beautiful prose I've ever read)
Competitive Strategy (Michael Porter) (Industrial Organization and economics)
Critique of Pure Reason (Immanuel Kant) (Argumentation)
The Federalist Papers (Hamilton/Madison/Jay) (American vision).

I don't include an intro Statistics or Economics text because I don't have one in particular that is epic beyond words, but if I did, I'd include it (Mankiw's not bad, but that's not how I learned economics). I'm tempted to include Michael Pettis' blog and JK Rowling's Harvard Commencement speech but I'll keep it to books.

I suppose that Competitive Strategy is somewhat duplicated by Buffett, and Critique of Pure Reason is somewhat duplicated by Plato and any sort of internal negative response to Mill, and the Federalist Papers is somewhat duplicated by de Tocqueville.

Machiavelli taught me the value of incentives before anyone else did, so I suppose he should be on the list. Machiavelli vs The Bible vs Les Miserables is difficult, but I suppose it should come down to Les Miserables because it has done more to influence my choice of reading and my perceptions of moral behavior, while the Bible's usefulness to me has been mostly from interest in comparing my personal moral philosophy to the prevailing morality, and Machiavelli's works are interesting as far as incentives go and in learning about political strategy, but it's less directly applicable to my everyday life outside of this blog. Les Mis by a hair.