Rich Dad, Poor Dad - Robert T. Kiyosaki
(recommended by a co-worker at BizSpace)
If you've been in the business/finance/investing section of a bookstore anytime recently, you've probably seen a whole series of books with the purple-and-black covers by Kiyosaki. A few months ago I decided to give it a shot and see if he had anything useful to say. Yes, and no. Some of what he says really challenges common thinking on how jobs work—you go to school to get a good job, work for most of your life, and then retire. Kiyosaki turns a lot of those ideas on their heads and suggests how we should think about finances differently. However, I found it also somewhat hard to get over his arrogance, and the fact that several of the methods he uses to make money depend on other people getting the short end of the deal. Worth a read, if only to see what other wanna-be rich people may be doing these days, and making sure you're not getting stepped on yourself. Is there any road to wealth that doesn't involve crushing people along the way? Discuss.