First book in the bookstore is from Dr. Brett Steenbarger, I'm a real fan of his books and his way of discussing the financial markets. You can pick any book from him, it's worth reading! Through all my writing, you can see his strong influence.
Then there are some other authors that have written interesting books (in random order) like the one about Lizard Brains by Terry Burham. Then there's some work of the legendary Dr. Alexander Elder.
The book by John Paulos was fun to read. The way he dealt with his Enron stocks is something we all can relate to. The mathematical part comes in when he explains some very interesting experiments. A Ph.D. in mathematics is not required though ;-)
These books are mainly about the psychological side of trading, about getting the proper mentality to become a successful trader. In my view, that is by far the most important part about trading. There is some technical analysis, but that is just a smaller portion of the book. Mark Douglas book is a great example of that, it doesn't contain a single chart(!)
If you're looking for more pattern analysis, using indicators etc then there are some titles below the ones just listed. There's the famous Encyclopedia of chart patterns and also The master swing trader.
Next section is about mechanical trading and how to apply this is in automatic trading and even high-frequency trading.
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Trading psychology |
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Brett N. Steenbarger -The daily trading coach Must read! Steenbarger is always a 'must read'. This book has many, many valuable advice for any trader. |
 
Brett N. Steenbarger - The psychology of trading Must read! No further explanation required. |
 
Brett N. Steenbarger - Enhancing trader performance Must read! No further explanation required. |
 
John Allen Paulos - A mathematician plays the stock market Fun to read and a good start to look at the markets in a different way. The reader can really sympathize with the writer. |
 
Terry Burnham - Mean markets and lizard brains I really liked the 'lizard' segments in this book. This book makes humans sometimes look like idiots. Which they are of course. |
 
Alexander Elder - Trading for a living A lot of market psychology and technical indicators. |
 
Mike Bellafiore - One good trade This is even fun to read for non-traders as it has lots of humor. It also points out that there is no 'easy way' of making money in the trading world. Trading is just very difficult and requires hard work and long hours. Take it one trade at a time. Contains some technical analysis and trade setups, but it's mostly about attitude and mentality. |
 
Mark Douglas - The disciplined trader Sometimes a bit difficult or vague, but a very good book that explains what it takes to be a trader and how to 'unlearn' certain behavior, perceptions, and expectations. |
| Technical analysis |
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Alexander Elder - Come into my trading room A lot of technical analysis and trading psychology |
 
Alan S. Farley - The master swing trader A lot of technical indicators and ways to trade. |
 
John Forman - The essentials of trading - from the basics to building a winning strategy Analysis of markets is one thing, trading another. As a trader, you should absolutely keep a journal, build a trading plan, do your risk and money management, etc. Next, the book does some useful suggestions on entering and exiting trades in sometimes a mechanical way.
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Thomas N. Bulkowski - Encyclopedia of chart patterns Patterns, patterns, patterns.... Good to have seen it. In the end, you can only trade so many patterns. |
| Mechanical, algorithmic and high-frequency trading | |
 
Richard L. Weissman - Mechanical trading systems Technical indicators used in a mechanical way. Explains how to trade by rules and make trading more mechanical. |
 
Ernest P. Chan - Quantitative trading - how to build your own algorithmic trading business Like the previous book, this is mainly about mechanical trading, but taking it (at least) one step further. This results in suggestions for setting up automatic trading programs. |
 
Laurence A. Connors - How markets really work Once you start reading this book, at one point you will think 'This can't be true'. It gets rid of some old trading wisdoms that were never true in the first place. |
 
Thomas Stridsman - Trading systems that work - building and evaluation effective trading systems This book somewhat continues where Electronic and algorithmic trading technology left off. It explains a more in-depth analysis of mechanical trading plans and measuring their performance. Again, don't be afraid of some algorithms here and there. |
 
Irene Aldridge - High-frequency trading - a practical guide to algorithmic strategies and trading systems Despite the sometimes harsh critics on Amazon, I liked this book very much. It does many suggestions with pros and cons on how to build HFT software and performance analysis. Be prepared for formulas and lots of math with many Greek symbols. If this scares you, then this book is definitely not for you. Otherwise: a very good read. |
 
Kendall Kim - Electronic and algorithmic trading technology The author starts with a short history of electronic trading and how this has influenced general ideas about trading and how it has evolved into today's situation. This is followed by a series of ways to analyze certain automatic trading programs. This is all not too much in-depth and more general information |
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