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February 1, 2024Family Office

St. Louis Trust & Family Office Book Club List

“What are you reading?” is a question we are often asked in both social settings and at the office. This is one of the reasons we created an internal book club in 2011. Over time, we’ve collected quite a list of books ranging in topics of finance, investing, management practices and more that have fostered great discussion, both internally and externally.

2024

  • Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon by Michael Lewis
  • Whiskey When We’re Dry by John Larison

2023

  • The Uncertainty Solution: How to Invest with Confidence in the Face of the Unknown by John M. Jennings
  • Kick Up Some Dust: Lessons on Thinking Big, Giving Back, and Doing It Yourself by Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot
  • Mobility: A Novel by Lydia Kiesling
  • The Myth of the Silver Spoon: Navigating Family Wealth and Creating an Impactful Life by Kristin Keffeler
  • Fool Me Once: Scams, Stories, and Secrets from the Trillion-Dollar Fraud Industry by Kelly Richmond Pope
  • Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

2022

  • Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zavin
  • The Watermen: The Birth of American Swimming and One Young Man’s Fight to Capture Olympic Gold by Michael Loynd
  • Trust by Hernan Diaz
  • Unstoppable: Siggi B. Wilzig’s Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend by Joshua M. Greene
  • Dare to Lead by Brene Browne
  • Invest Like the Best Podcast with Patrick O’Shaughnessy: “Making the Future with Marc Andreessen”

2021

  • The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
  • Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant
  • Uncommon Stock: Version 1.0 by Eliot Peper
  • The American Experiment: Dialogues on a Dream by David M. Rubenstein
  • Pappyland: A Story of Family, Fine Bourbon, and the Things That Last by Wright Thompson
  • The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness by Morgan Housel

2020

  • The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
  • Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice by Bill Browder
  • Billion Dollar Brand Club by Lawrence Ingrassia
  • Leading Without Authority: How Every One of Us Can Build Trust, Create Candor, Energize Our Teams, and Make a Difference by Keith Ferrazzi
  • White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
  • Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds by David Goggins

2019

  • AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order by Kai-Fu Lee
  • Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas
  • Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood and the World by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope
  • The Beneficiary: Fortune, Misfortune, and the Story of my Father by Janny Scott
  • Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World by Tim Marshall
  • The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

2018

  • The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
  • Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull
  • Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
  • A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
  • Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling
  • Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
  • Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
  • The Fox Hunt: A Refugee’s Memoir of Coming to America by Mohammed Al Samawi

2017

  • The Power of Fifty Bits: The New Science of Turning Good Intentions into Positive Results by Bob Nease
  • Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight
  • Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
  • Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant
  • Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance
  • Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War by Michael Shaara
  • The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google by Scott Galloway
  • The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson

2016

  • Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
  • Future Crimes: Inside the Digital Underground and the Battle for Our Connected World by Marc Goodman
  • American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company by Bryce G. Hoffman
  • The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
  • Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing by Jamie Holmes
  • Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli
  • A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

2015

  • How not to be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg
  • Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
  • Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel
  • The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who are Grounded, Generous and Smart About Money by Ron Lieber
  • The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail by Clayton M. Christensen

2014

  • The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
  • A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation by Richard Bookstaber
  • Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
  • The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee
  • The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown
  • Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing by Harry Beckwith
  • Strangers in Paradise: How Families Adapt to Wealth Across Generations by James Grubman
  • The Thin Green Line: The Money Secrets of the Super Wealthy by Paul Sullivan

2013

  • The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports and Investing by Michael Mauboussin
  • The Little Book of Behavioral Investing: How Not to Be Your Own Worst Enemy by James Montier
  • Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
  • Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg

2011 – 2012

  • A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing by Burton Malkiel
  • Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes by Gary Belsky & Thomas Gilovich
  • Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
  • Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure by Tim Harford
  • Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis
  • The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni
  • Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
  • Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
  • Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization by Dave Logan, John King and Halee Fischer-Wright
  • The Hedge Fund Mirage: The Illusion of Big Money and Why It’s Too Good to Be True by Simon Lack
  • The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail but Some Don’t by Nate Silver

 Investment Committee

  • Successful Investing is a Process: Structuring Efficient Portfolios for Outperformance by Jacques Lussier
  • Expected Returns: An Investor’s Guide to Harvesting Market Rewards by Antti Ilmanen
  • Deep Risk: How History Informs Portfolio Design by William J. Bernstein
  • Simple Wealth, Inevitable Wealth by Nick Murray
  • The Investor’s Paradox: The Power of Simplicity in a World of Overwhelming Choice by Bryan Portnoy
  • The Investor’s Manifesto: Preparing for Prosperity, Armageddon, and Everything in Between by William J. Bernstein
  • The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better by Tyler Cowen
  • The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassem Taleb
  • Your Complete Guide to Factor-Based Investing by Andrew L. Berkin & Larry E. Swedroe
  • The Laws of Wealth – Psychology and the Secret to Investing Success by Dr. Daniel Crosby
  • Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought by Andrew W. Lo.
  • Mastering the Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side by Howard Marks
  • The Laws of Wealth: Psychology and the Secret to Investing Success by Daniel Crosby

Management Committee

  • The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle
  • What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture by Ben Horowitz
  • Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink
  • The Power of Why: Breaking Out in a Competitive Marketplace by C. Richard Weylman
  • Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd by Youngme Moon
  • Y-Size Your Business: How Gen Y Employees Can Save You Money and Grow Your Business by Jason Ryan Dorsey
  • Who: The A Method for Hiring by Geoff Smart & Randy Street
  • Small Giants: Companies Who Choose to be Great Instead of Big by Bo Burlingham
  • The Hard Thing About Hard Things – Building a Business When There are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz
  • It’s Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy by D. Michael Abrashoff
  • The Great Game of Business by Jack Stack
  • Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade by Robert Cialdini
  • Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio
  • Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.
  • The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business by Patrick M. Lencioni

St. Louis Trust & Family Office is an independent, multi-family office and trust company that advises clients on more than $10 billion of investment assets and more than $12 billion of total wealth. Founded in 2002, St. Louis Trust & Family Office provides holistic, high-touch client service including customized, independent investment management and a full range of family office and fiduciary services. The firm serves a limited number of clients with substantial wealth in order to maintain very low client-to-employee ratios. Visit stlouistrust.com to explore how the firm manages complexity with unmatched expertise and focuses on Family, Always.

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