I agree with @flintnational; the Boglehead list is a great place to start, but it is a bit daunting. From that list, I suggest "
Winning the Loser's Game" by Charles Ellis, and "
A Random Walk Down Wall Street" by Burton Malkiel to start. Both are classics and have been revised several times. Be sure to buy the latest revisions.
Again I agree with @Flintnational on the Bill Bernstein books (he has quite a few titles for you to browse) but be warned that Bernstein tends to dump his readers into the deep end of the pool, particularly if they are not technically/mathematically inclined. Read him for sure, but probably not as your first books.
One very basic book I have been recommending lately is "
The Coffee House Investor" by Bill Schultheis. There are many books of this general ilk, but I met Bill on a financial advisor survey trip for a nonprofit I have been helping and can confirm that he is the real deal. I have not tried his recipe for pumpkin pie (in the book!) but based on the quality of everything else in the book I'll predict that it would be very good.
I do NOT recommend the popular magazines or web sites. In general they push the following two-part myth:
- It is possible for smart people to consistently make money by finding and buying "undervalued" stocks.
- The past history of a stock-picker is predictive of his/her future success.
The reason they push the myth is that there are about 1 million folks in the investment business (source: bls.gov) and the vast majority of them rely on the myth to fill their rice bowls. These are the people that support the popular magazines and web sites with their advertising dollars, hence making it almost impossible for the magazines and web sites to really tell the truth about the myth. It would put them out of business.
This is what the economists call an "agency problem." The magazines and web sites represent that they are your agents in honestly teaching you about investing and investment opportunities, but in fact their huge conflict of interest makes this completely impossible. IMO the Motley Fool is among the worst, but I have not attempted a detailed survey.
If you want a little more about debunking the myth, I humbly suggest the links in my post #6 here:
http://www.early-retirement.org/for...ral-is-a-good-approach-89566.html#post1972988
Good luck!