Straight Talk on Investing by Jack Brennan. Great place to start! This provides a well-written introduction to the world of savings and investing. Written specifically for the beginning investor.
Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel. This is a popular discussion of the stock market and the efficient market hypothesis. Prof. Malkiel was my finance professor back in college. He was the professor who first got me started on saving and investing.
Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor by John C. Bogle. Provides evidence on why you should invest in index mutual funds.
Stocks for the Long Run by Jeremy Siegel. This is a terrific overview of the returns of stocks over time and makes the case that stocks are the best investment against inflation in the long run.
The Future for Investors by Jeremy Siegel. Siegel follows up his best-selling Stocks for the Long Run with a book about which individual stocks are best poised for long run growth in the future.
The Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham. This is considered a classic in the fundamental analysis of stocks.
Big Picture Investing by Peter Navarro. If you feel ready for the ups and downs of investing in individual stocks instead of mutual funds, this is a great lecture series. He shows how you can use macroeconomics to help make smart investment decisions.
The Little Book That Beats the Market by hedge-fund manager and Columbia Business School professor, Joel Greenblatt, offers elegantly simple advice for both children and accomplished investors. The focus: buying good companies (those with high returns on capital) at bargain prices (compared with earnings). (description from Barrons)
Against the Gods by Peter Bernstein. A great book about how people have tried to manage risk throughout history.
Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions by Ben Mezrich. Great book about some students who developed a system to "count cards" while playing blackjack. Made millions.
Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street by William Poundstone. This is the sometimes Runyonesque, sometimes intellectually challenging account of the development of a "surefire" way to win at cards, roulette, and the stock market: the "Kelly criterion," first revealed in 1956 by a young Bell Laboratories physicist named John L. Kelly Jr. The system dictates how much of your money to bet to maximize the growth rate of your wealth while controlling risk. Some of Poundstone's book can be tough sledding for casual readers. But he eases the way with anecdotes about all kinds of characters, from mobsters Al Capone and Longy Zwillman to Nobel prize-winning economist Paul A. Samuelson. (description from Business Week)