Ask HN: What are the must-read books about economics/finance?

I work in a quant hedge fund - I'll give you my take. The first thing I would point out is that there is a massive difference between academic theory and practice. I don't want to turn this into an anti-academic rant, but I do want to emphasise that we value very different things. For this reason alone, most of what you read in most textbooks won't do you much good.

Personally I wouldn't place too much emphasis on outside knowledge. Basic knowledge of economics wouldn't hurt, but don't go nuts. Khan academy will give you more than enough theory. You don't want to spend all your energy developing a skill that a trained economist applicant will crush you at. Neither should you focus too much on e.g. stochastic analysis. In the real world, no-one cares whether a stochastic process is previsible or progressively measurable. But knowing how to derive Black-Scholes couldn't hurt.

So far I've msotly talked about what you shouldn't read. I'll try to talk a little bit about what you should. Read the financial press. The FT or the wall street journal, depending on where you're based. Read finance blogs. Frances coppola is good. So is the Bank of England's blog. Check out Alphaville at the FT too. You'll be expected to know what's going on in the world right now. Could you explain what QE is? For a finance job, that's more important than knowing what the IS/LM model says. What's been going on in China recently? What do you think about their currency outflows?

Know how to code. At least one of Python, Matlab or R for the buy side, one of Java or C++ for the sell side.

Most importantly, though, you should be able to demonstrate enthusiasm. Any given junior quant role will get hundreds of applications, and some demonstrable interest will put you head and shoulders above the pack. A link to some decent analysis on github would do (none of the hundred or so applicants to the last position we advertised did that). Play with some financial data. Quantopian is apparently a good resource.

I've talked about how to prepare for a general finance job. The specific reading you should do will depend on exactly what job you want. Do you want to be a quant? If so, buy side or sell side? Read up on the difference. Go check out efinancialcareers, have a look at the skills they're asking for within each sector, and take it from there.

Adam Smith - Wealth of Nations

Keynes - The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

Ben Bernanke - Essays on the Great Depression

Robert Shiller - Irrational Exuberance

Levitt and Dubner - Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Daniel Kahneman - Thinking, fast and slow

People have mentioned different authors across different schools of economic thoughts such as Mankiw, Rothbard, Friedman, Hayek, Smith, Keynes, etc. There's one that's also being mentioned which I particularly would avoid recommending which is Piketty.

Those are the best recommendations.

I would like to give a recommendation that might be a little bit different: 'Why Nations Fail' by Acemoglu.

This one provides a great foundation for how to think about economics before you get into the details. It's a must-read.

I haven't read enough of Friedman to argue details, but I do know they were from different economic schools. Mises and Hayek were of the Austrian school. Friedman was in the Chicago school. As far as heterodox, Friedman seems to have enjoyed more political and social influence than Hayek and Mises ever did.