Wisdom of Finance: Discovering Humanity in the World of Risk and Return Paperback – 30 Apr 2018

Not recommended for veteran finance practitioners. There is still interesting stuff there to learn but it's much less than what I expected or the preface states

This book offers a lot of insight into the world of finance, including philosophy and literature. Mihir takes you through the basic financial concepts in a very peculiar way, inviting you not to forget the true essence of finance.

This book is not so easy read as it looks like. For the finance practionist there are some interesting texts and for finance begginner book is not so easy because of curious mixture with humanistics. Some chapters of the book are very good especially explanation of beta concept and interesting links with somebody's friends (high beta). Good part of the book is also around bankruptcy issues and also a small bits about options. The rest I find a bit forced and parallels between investment banking and literature seem somehow silly. From my experience the people who work in banks or brokerages are millions miles away from serious literature. It is interesting that a lot of them like to listen to pop/rock music - investment bankers especially to Grateful Dead. Read about devastating sell out of Rolling Stones for the private audience of 500 investment bankers in the book named Why aren't they shouting. Pure shame. And that is why I am suspicious about our book. It tries to cross the bridge between pragmatism of bankers and spirituality of literature. I think it is better to read pragmatic finance book of Warren Buffett with its country wisdom and then in the quiet of the night some stuff from Hermann Hesse, Alberto Moravia or Jacob Wasserman. From the perspective of the economist - finance for the living and paying bills, literature for the soul. This discrepance grows immensly when you grow older and wiser and you discover how vain is in last instance everything connected with greed and material enrichment - materialism of finance can never satisfy a soul longing for answers for eternal questions. So to an author - nice try but there is no need to further explorations.

This is the second book from prof. Mihir Desai that i finished. I think the explanation on the cover of the book and the product description does not do justice to what the book covers. This is a 2 way street kinda book: If you know know the basics of finance then it allows you to see how the knowledge of finance can help you develop certain mental models to see the world with and solve problems. If you do not know finance then it uses the real world examples to explain basic concepts. It takes the first chapter to get a hand of the flow in the book, but if you cross that then you are stuck till you finish the book.Amazing buy and unlike his other book on finance which you don't need to read start to finish, this one is written like a novel at least when you read for the first time.

A wonderful blend of Finance and life.