"The Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing" by Jason Kelly - If you've never read a book about investing in the stock market, this is a great book to start with. Having read many of the authors that Jason cites, I found his distillation of their concepts quite good. Jason first teaches one how to evaluate stocks, and then what the Master Investors (e.g., Buffett, Fisher) can teach us about investing and stock selection.

The Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing by Jason Kelly is a good recommendation by eAsk for beginning investors. I would also recommend reading books that help you understand financial statements, such as:

• Keys to Reading an Annual Report by G. Friedlob and R. Welton, 4th ed.
• Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs by K. Berman and J. Knight

When you are ready to start thinking about asset allocation, get the book "All About Asset Allocation" by Richard Ferri. The book does a fine job of explaining asset allocation and the fundamental concepts that build a diversified porfolio. Asset allocation is explained very well in relation to portfolio diversification and how rebalancing is essentially the way to increase gains. It explains very well that asset allocation is all about risk management and there is no one size fits all though we can still markup broad categories of similar investor behavior.

I don't know if this is a must read but the book "Stikky Stock Charts" was a good introduction into understanding chart patterns and how people use them (or attempt to use them) to predict where stocks are going. I don't think I'll be using chart patterns to buy and sell stocks but it at least help me understand what people are doing when they are using chart patterns. It was a very quick read.