Title: What You Need To Know Before You Invest
Author: Rod Davis
Source: library
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Fun Fact: The Dow Jones index was created in 1884, when it included 11 companies and was computed by hand.
Review Summary: This was mostly an easy read and seemed like a good introduction to the different types of investments.
Investing is a topic that makes me anticipate being confused, bored or both, so I approached this book with a certain amount of trepidation. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up at all if it weren’t for two things. First, my significant other and I are reaching a stage in our careers where knowing something about investing seems responsible. Secondly, my attempt to read through the Dewey Decimal system made this day inevitable. Fortunately, the majority of the book was a much easier read than I expected.
With a few small exceptions, everything I was interested in was explained very clearly. The writing was generally easy to follow with great analogies and helpful numeric examples. Sometimes the writing was even funny. At the end of every chapter, there were a series of review questions which I found very useful for clarifying and reminding me of points made in the chapter. The important concepts were always in bold text, which also helped.
The last short chapter or two got into overly complicated investment ideas, but the majority of the book was a very useful intro to how stocks, bonds, and mutual funds work. I particularly liked that the book mostly refrained from making judgments about investing options, but gave the reader the tools necessary to begin making decisions themselves. As someone with no previous knowledge about investing, I found it very helpful and would recommend the book to other beginners.
Doing Dewey 
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