Books I read in 2010

In an unprecedented turn of events, I bought a few books to read. That means a lot. These books are not the read-and-throw ones. It also meant that the number of books I read came down.

பொன்னியின் செல்வன்
Originally a long running story in Kalki, published in full verse. I bought the 5 parts-set in the Chennai Book Fair this year. Venkatesh found it so interesting that he finished all the 5 parts in a week. It's astonishing, given the fact that he's never read any book before in his life. It's also a pity that, a serialized story, which was read by the older generation with so much suspense maintained between every two chapters, the impatience the readers had to endure every week for three and a half years, was read without any patience (after the first part, he first read the last few pages of each part, like some idiotic lovers of the Harry Potter series). It just goes to show, the younger generations need to be spoon-fed with everything, including how to read a book and enjoy the suspense. It took me a year to finish the book.

Technical Analysis - Plain and Simple
This book by Michael N Kahn is a good one for beginners in the stock trading arena. Patterns, Charts, Trends and what not? Unfortunately, this book taught me things which I shouldn't know in the first place. In an FAQ session, Warren Buffett said: "The good thing about business is that you don’t have to know any higher math. It may be an advantage not to know it". Charlie Munger seconded it, "Yes, it is. If you know it, you feel the need to use it".

Paths of Glory
This is another page turner by Jeffrey Archer. Archer's version of George Mallory. A good one for time pass.

The Intelligent Investor
I've never read any book twice, before this one. This book is full of maddening common sense, typical Benjamin Graham. Must read for any serious minded investor.

2 States: The Story of My Marriage
Chetan Bhagat - Need to say anything else? Manikandan once said, "If you do a find-replace-all of one particular word with a blank, any Chetan Bhagat book would get halved in size".

One Up On Wall Street
This one's usual investment stuff. Not worth lingering.

Security Analysis
Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd - The Investor's Bible. Your life doesn't end without reading following this book, if you're an Investor. This is the second book, I'm reading for the second time. Looks like, I've to read this one, two more times. When I say, I read a book more than once, I don't want to miss anything from the book, by loss of memory.

This year, I drowned in the ocean of Value Investing. Like I said about The Intelligent Investor, there is so much common sense in Value Investing that, it's maddening. I'm sure there can never be a better book in Investing, than The Intelligent Investor and Security Analysis.

I'm reading another interesting book, The Joy of Not Working. I'd complete it in 2011.