In the past, I have attempted to read a couple of personal finance books in my school’s library without much success. I just couldn’t go past a dozen pages or so. Somehow, it seemed to me that they were all saying the same thing. It’s quite possible that I have biased myself with the reviews by other personal finance bloggers before I started reading the books…(or may be I wasn’t reading the right books for a start). Sometimes, deep down, I feel, this is also because some book authors may be trying to fill a large number of pages with a small amount of advice in order to call it a *book*. Whatever.
After some contemplation on this matter, over the past few days, I decided to give it another sincere shot. May be I will not like them again, but I think it’s important for my development to read all sides of a story. As a quick follow up, I headed over to a Half Price Books outlet in my town (here is their website) and searched for some money/personal finance related books. 
I must have browsed through over 30 ~ 40 books (browsed = read a random page or two from the books), and most of them didn’t seem all that interesting. Finally, after about 2 full hours, I zeroed in on the following books. Prices are given in brackets.
- Zero Debt - by Lynnette Khalfani ($7.48)
Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees - by Neale S. Godfrey ($5.48)- Yankee Magazine’s Living Well on a Shoestring - by The Editors of Yankee Magazine ($5.98)
- The Automatic Millionaire - by David Bach ($6.48)
- The Millionaire Next Door (Hardcover)- by Stanley and Danko ($10.98)
Total spent for 5 books: $36.40 + taxes = $39.40 (I love this… my first book as an engineering graduate student cost me $160 something).
The last two in the list are in brand new condition and the other three are used (I think), but they look like new too. Now, in the weeks to come, I will post some reviews 
(critical or otherwise) of the stuff I read in these books (and no, I won’t sneak in Amazon referral links with those reviews). I will probably start with the cheapest book first - Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees and read the others in the increasing order of their price.
On a related note, I checked the list price for these books at Amazon.com, and here is what I got:
- Zero Debt ($10.61)
- Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees ($11.64)
- Yankee Magazine’s Living Well on a Shoestring ($19.77)
- The Automatic Millionaire ($10.36)
- The Millionaire Next Door ($14.96)
Total = $67.34, no tax and free shipping…but this still would have been much more expensive, plus the wait.
So, the next time when you are in a mood to buy some personal finance books, remember to visit the nearest Half Price Books outlet. It might be worth the time and efforts.
If you have come across good personal finance books by not-so-famous (or even obscure) authors, and/or have other recommendations, please feel free to drop a line.
