What is the best investment in 2026?
Warren Buffett has often said that investing in yourself is the best investment you can make. Skills, judgement, temperament, and clear thinking compound over a lifetime — and unlike financial assets, they can’t be taken away. For me, that investment has mostly taken the form of reading.
I love reading and tend to return to books that help me think more clearly about money, work, and decisions. If you share that curiosity, you may find something useful in the list below.
Every book here is one I’ve already read and found genuinely worth the time. They help build what I think of as internal capital — the habits, perspectives, and decision-making frameworks that influence almost every financial outcome.
Below is the list — feel free to start wherever your curiosity pulls you.
A small confession before we start: this was meant to be a list of ten books, but I couldn’t stop myself from leaving out Buffett’s letters — so it’s technically eleven entries, but still ten books. Enjoy.
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Classics & Foundations Books
1) Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders — Warren Buffett
A practical, plain-spoken education in capital allocation, business quality, and investor temperament, written over decades by one of the world’s best capital allocators. Entirely system-agnostic and just as relevant outside the US; also completely free to read online.
2) The Intelligent Investor — Benjamin Graham
The foundation of value investing and margin of safety. Dense and dated in parts, but still unmatched in teaching risk discipline and long-term thinking.
3) Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman
A demanding but rewarding deep dive into how human judgement actually works. Essential if you want to understand your own decision errors, including in investing.
World, History & Big Picture Thinking
4) Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind — Yuval Noah Harari
A broad, reflective history that reframes how money, institutions, and cooperation emerged over time. One of those rare books that is genuinely fascinating and enjoyable to read, while also subtly reshaping how you think about history, cooperation, and money.
5) Factfulness — Hans Rosling
A data-driven antidote to automatic pessimism that trains you to separate newspaper headlines from long-term reality. Not a finance book, but highly relevant for calmer, more rational decision-making in an information-heavy world.
If you haven’t seen it yet, Hans Rosling’s 4 min video talk on statistics is a perfect companion to the book — it tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers.
6) The Changing World Order — Ray Dalio
A macro-level framework for understanding debt cycles, currency regimes, and shifts in global power. Best suited for readers interested in long-term context, not short-term investment decisions.
7) The Age of Turbulence — Alan Greenspan
Part memoir, part economic reflection from a long-serving central banker. US-centric, but valuable for understanding how policymakers think under uncertainty.
Modern Personal Finance & Behaviour
8) The Simple Path to Wealth — JL Collins
A clear introduction to long-term wealth building through simplicity, discipline, and low-cost investing. Very US-focused in implementation, but valuable for Europeans as a mindset book.
9) The Psychology of Money — Morgan Housel
An exploration of how behaviour, luck, and emotion shape financial outcomes more than intelligence. Examples are mostly US-based, but the lessons are universal and especially useful if you already know the basics.
10) The Millionaire Fastlane — MJ DeMarco
A provocative counterpoint to traditional personal finance narratives, focused on entrepreneurship and leverage. Loud, very American in tone, but useful as a perspective shift.
11) Freakonomics — Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
A collection of case studies that train you to think in incentives and second-order effects. Not about money directly, but excellent mental training for decision-making.
The practical side
Most financial outcomes don’t come from clever products, but from a handful of big decisions made reasonably well over time.
These books shaped how I think about money — but most of the real learning happened when I had to apply that thinking to real life: pension choices, repaying a mortgage, and choosing health insurance for my family.
That’s what I explore in more depth on the blog.
Featured photo credit: University of Basel
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