<p>I won't waste too much time giving you the details of my situation, but I, for a number of reasons, have felt a desire to become acquainted w/ the basics of business, economics, and finance. In college, I am a Classics major doing the pre-med reqs as well. Given that, I haven't really taken any econ or business classes. I know things like "read the WSJ" or "read the Economist". What I'm really looking for are recs for books that would offer a from-scratch, ground-up approach to the very basics of these fields. I'm open to any and all suggestions. They can be textbooks or otherwise. I just want to get acquainted with the terminology and whatnot involved, because I am largely clueless at this point. Any help you could give would be great. Thanks.</p>
<p>Naked Economics</p>
<p>I'll second the rec for <em>Naked Economics</em>.</p>
<p>Other recs:</p>
<p>Economics:
<em>The Wisdom of Crowds</em> (Surowiecki -- also, read his column in <em>The New Yorker</em>)
<em>The Undercover Economist</em> (Harford)
<em>The Wealth of Nations</em> (Smith)
<em>Who's Afraid of the WTO?</em> (Jones)
As for introductory textbooks, I'm fond of Stiglitz, but whatever is for sale used at your college bookstore will do just fine.</p>
<p>Finance:
The "Fool's School" intro articles on the Motley Fool website give a good introduction to personal finance topics. This is a good place to start if you don't know what a mutual fund is or how amortized loans work.</p>
<p><em>The Intelligent Investor</em> (Graham) is a good intro to the value investing philosophy. The 2003 edition w/ annotations by Jason Zweig illustrates Graham's points w/ more recent examples.</p>
<p><em>Liar's Poker</em> (Lewis) is a memoir of his years at Salomon Bros., standard reading for anyone who wants to work on Wall St.</p>
<p><em>When Genius Failed</em> (Lowenstein) describes how hedge funds work -- and how one collapsed.</p>
<p>Business:
<em>The 10-Day MBA</em></p>
<p>Economics: </p>
<p>Freakonomics </p>
<p>The different textbooks by Gregory Mankiw both Macro and Micro</p>
<p>Econlib.org</p>
<p>UC-Berkley actually has podcasts of their introductory Macroeconomic Class. So far they have worked pretty well for myself. A little long but I recommend them. (Free)</p>
<p>Somewhat economic, somewhat political: Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman</p>
<p>Business:</p>
<p>The Business Week Podcast (Free): Somewhat data heavy but plenty of terms are explained</p>
<p>I have yet to read them but Mad Money Jim Kramer has a few books out with a pretty solid approval rating.
Confessions of a Street Addict comes to mind.
Hopefully this helps.</p>