If you are to listen to Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, or any smart people around, they’d tell you that the best way to get smarter is to read a lot.

Warren Buffett says, “I just sit in my office and read all day.”

Charlie Munger says, “We read a lot. I don’t know anyone who’s wise who doesn’t read a lot.”

“But which books should I read?” ask a lot of tribe members.

Here’s a solution I propose, and something that would surely interest you.

I’ve picked out 15 of the best books I’ve ever read on investing, human behaviour, and related subjects. I want you to have them. All 15 of them, worth Rs 7,500 or even more. I will pay for them.

I can’t give all 15 books to all the people who read this, but I am looking to give them to 3 people through Safal Niveshak’s Book Giveaway 2015. See the bottom of this post for more details.

[Read more…] about Safal Niveshak’s Book Giveaway 2015 – Win 15 Free Books!

Together we learned quite a bit in 2014 (at least I did). 🙂

Through my investing workshops across 14 cities (the most in any year so far), I also met 300+ tribe members, which was in itself a great personal learning experience.

Finally, I rounded off the year meeting the legendary investor Mohnish Pabrai and Prof. Sanjay Bakshi.

As far as the website is concerned, the number of visitors increased by about 56% during the year and the number of pages viewed crossed 1 million for the first time (up 42% over 2013).

I wrote around 125 posts during the year. Here is a chance for you to catch up on something you might have missed. These are some of the best posts from the year, based on the number of views and comments.

1. Value Investing, the Sanjay Bakshi Way 2.0 – My second interview of Prof. Bakshi was as big a hit as the first one in 2012. In this one, he talked about the important concepts of economic moats, valuations, mental models, diversification, checklists, and why you must buy great businesses for the long term. Overall, a terrific read!

2. Simple Ideas on Wealth Creation, the Subramoney Way – Subra, as he’s popularly known, believes that to make money, you do not need too many ideas. You need simple ideas and discipline. Simple ideas, and many of them, are what he shared in this interview for Safal Niveshak, which was the second most read series here this year.

3. Interview with Basant Maheshwari – In this no holds barred interview, Basant talked about his upbringing as an investor, what he learned along the way, and his process of identifying great businesses. A nice read, especially for a new investor.

4. 36 Lessons from 36 Years of My Life – As I completed thirty-six years in this life, I shared a handful of lessons I’ve learned — lessons on life, work, family, health, and money – which may serve as a helpful guide for those just starting out. Though I was not sure this would be of much interest to readers, but it ended up as one of the most read and commented posts on the site this year.

5. 5 Lessons on Life & Investing from Guy Spier’s Education of a Value Investor – If I had not read Guy Spier’s The Education of a Value Investor, and someone told me his story, I would have believed it was mine. In this post, I shared the five meaningful thoughts (among many) that Guy has written about in his book, which I believe serve a great learning for most people aspiring to find a greater meaning in life and become better as value investors. I recommend you read Guy’s book, if you haven’t done already.

6. How I Multiplied My Income 2.5x, Savings 5x, and Happiness 20x (After Quitting My Job) – The title of this post conveys a lot, I believe. This one came straight from my heart, and thus one of my personal favourites.

7. The Happiest Man I’ve Ever Met – In this post, I profiled a man of very modest means but among the happiest people I’ve ever met in my life. You’ll be happy reading this post.

8. 10 Investing Gems from Peter Lynch’s One Up on Wall Street – This brilliant book offers great insight into the mind of one of the greatest money managers of all times. In this post, I shared just ten of them. Anyone thinking about buying individual stocks must read Lynch’s book before they ever make their first stock purchase. This post can be a start.

9. Confessions of a Stock Market Analyst – This post was originally written in June 2012, but I re-posted it this year and it again turned out to be among the most popular on the blog.

10. Can You Sum Up Your Investing Philosophy in 10 Words? – I asked tribe members to sum up their investing philosophies in 10 words or less, and was positively surprised at the amazing responses. If you haven’t shared your investment philosophy, you can do it right away.

I have a lot more coming in 2015. 🙂

Happy New Year, and be safe!