Finance That Feels explores the psychology and mindset behind our financial decisions—asking why we are the way we are with money—and offers tools to help you align your money with your biggest dreams and deepest values. For more regular updates, follow @emiliedayanhill on Instagram.
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A non-fiction foray
A strange thing happened in 2020: I stopped reading fiction.
I can’t explain it other than to say that life felt crazy enough — I didn’t need any more drama or surprises in my life.
I spent the last several years immersed in histories, memoirs, biographies and religious, financial, self-help, psychology and sociology texts. In this search for facts, data, and truth I learned a lot.
While I have gradually re-entered the fiction universe, non-fiction remains the bulk of my book stack.
Here are the books that I find myself always recommending. Some are about money specifically but have shaped how I live, and some are about life and have shaped how I approach money. All of these books have changed me.
Books About Money That Changed How I Live
1. The Ascent of Money — Niall Ferguson.
Takeaways: How money works at the macro level; geopolitics plays a large role in the value of money; money only has the value that we assign it (or that we believe it has — inherently it’s just a piece of paper, a piece of metal, a line of code, or a seashell.)
2. The Big Short — Michael Lewis.
Takeaways: Greed is powerful; people will always take risk a step too far; being right can sometimes look wrong for a long time.
3. The Little Book That Beats the Market — Joel Greenblatt.
Takeaways: What exactly is a stock and how can you know what it’s true value is?
4. The Most Important Thing Illuminated — Howard Marks.
Takeaways: Markets operate in cycles — how are we to navigate them? In the short term investing is unpredictable. In the long term, investing is quite predictable.
5. The Myth of the Silver Spoon — Kristin Keffeler.
Takeaways: The impact money has on identity. Money problems, and feelings about it, exist regardless of how much money you have.
6. The Psychology of Money — Morgan Housel.
Takeaways: We are really, truly irrational when it comes to money. Explores how to counteract our natural impulses and be good with money.
7. Richer, Wiser, Happier — William Green.
Takeaways: The philosophy and mindset of great investors. Being good with money and being a good investor is actually a lifestyle.
8. The Snowball — Alice Schroeder.
Takeaways: This is a biography of Warren Buffett. A reminder that history is long, markets are unpredictable, and time and consistency is the only winning strategy.
9. Vulture Capitalism — Grace Blakeley.
Takeaways: Socialism is often critiqued for the flaws of centralized planning. Blakeley argues that a similar degree of centralized planning occurs under capitalism. “If centralized planning tends to lead to tyranny, then why shouldn’t we be just as concerned about corporate planning as we are about state planning? …We must analyze actually existing capitalism by returning to our original questions: Where is planning taking place? How is it being executed? Whose interests is it serving?”
Books About Life That Changed How I Think About Money
10. Ambition Monster — Jennifer Romolini.
Takeaways: One person’s journey of upward mobility and the concomitant identity and relationship evolutions that occur in the presence (and absence) of money.
11. Be Ready When the Luck Happens — Ina Garten.
Takeaways: I love Ina even more after reading her memoir. It’s a beautiful story of recognizing and acting on opportunity.
12. Better Than Before — Gretchen Rubin.
Takeaways: There is a lot that is not in our control, but our individual actions are absolutely in our control. You can create the life you want to live.
13. Daring Greatly — Brené Brown.
Takeaways: The book that single-handedly inspired me to live more courageously. Daring greatly in the arena of life — relationships, work, spirit.
14. The Female Brain — Louann Brizendine, M.D.
Takeaways: Male and female brains are wired differently. This book validated the sense I had for so long that the traditional financial services industry does not engage women in a way that is meaningful to them and most useful to their long-term financial wellbeing.
15. Invisible Women — Caroline Criado Perez.
Takeaways: How the very design of infrastructure — from city planning to healthcare to workplace policies — is by men, for men, and inherently disadvantages women. We have a long way to go.
16. Mindset — Carol S. Dweck.
Takeaways: The power of believing in your own abilities. Why we should all seek a growth mindset over a fixed mindset.
17. The Nordic Theory of Everything — Anu Partanen.
Takeaways: What a more financially egalitarian society could look like.
18. On Our Best Behavior — Elise Loehnen.
Takeaways: How society leveraged the Seven Deadly Sins to exert power over women throughout Western history and continues to shape social constructs of womanhood.
19. Predictably Irrational — Dan Ariely.
Takeaways: The book I read in grad school that launched my endless fascination with behavioral finance and psychology.
20. The Sabbath World — Judith Shulevitz.
Takeaways: How a single day of the week created the sense of time and how that, to this day, shapes how we live.
21. Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman. Takeaways: A deeper dive into the research that shows humans are not the rational agents we once thought we were.
Now it’s your turn! What book isn’t on this list that should be?
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DISCLAIMER
The opinions of Emilie Hill are solely her personal opinions and not necessarily the opinions of her employer. Social content provided by Emilie is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any security.
Thanks for sharing! I’m an avid reader and haven’t read any of these!! Look forward to to checking these out. 📚💛
I am so happy to discovered your work, it feels so aligned with our approach! Bravo, and I LOVE this overview, thank you so much for sharing, I cannot wait to check out a few of the ones I have not read yet. Perhaps this is an example of writing of ours that shows we are working in similarly holistic ways: https://dearmoneyletters.substack.com/p/5-proven-ways-to-reduce-anxiety-and