A great way of improving your investment skills is to read the thoughts of successful investors. The investment scene is littered with books that outline the stock picking principles behind many legendary stock pickers. Whilst by no means covering every single publication, this feature will help narrow down the field for the Foolish stock picker. However, a word of warning. Just like the Foolish investing strategies, any book, regardless of who wrote it, should not be viewed as gospel.
Books ought to help form a foundation for personal investing guidelines, but nothing more.
One other point to note is that the best books are often directed at a US audience. While the important philosophy parts should be readily understandable, UK readers will have to put up with dollar signs and the odd unfamiliar company name. Beginners For beginners, there's no better book to get started with than Peter Lynch's One Up On Wall Street . The real beauty of Lynch's book is the easy-going review of the simplistic stock picking style that brought him so much success at US fund managers Fidelity. Low on number crunching but high on anecdotal stories, readers are given a clear picture on how to get off to a good start in the markets.