Three New Finance Books for 2026

We continue our tradition of recommending investment books on the occasion of World Book Day, a date that in Catalonia coincides with a deeply rooted celebration: Sant Jordi, the festival of books and roses. If you’ve never experienced it, I recommend coming to Barcelona around these dates. It’s a beautiful celebration: the streets fill with books, authors signing copies and, of course, roses. And no, I don’t say this just because it’s also my saint’s day.

As a reference, Sant Jordi 2025 once again confirmed the enormous cultural and economic scale of this celebration. According to published data, Catalan bookstores recorded revenues of more than €26.1 million and sold over two million books, in what was already considered the best edition in history. At the same time, the sector estimated that more than 7 million roses were sold in Catalonia.

In 2026, we are once again expanding our investment library with new titles that can not only help you better understand the world of investing and financial markets, but also help you make more informed decisions in a field that is, by nature, full of complexity and technicalities.

Before moving on to this year’s list, let’s remember: Why should we read finance books?

Read and educate yourself: no one will manage your finances better than you

Financial education and the real functioning of markets are barely taught in school. Even in degrees such as Economics or Business Administration, these topics are often covered only partially or insufficiently. However, knowing how to manage money well is essential not only to achieve financial goals, but also to make many life projects possible: starting a family, launching a business, buying a home, traveling the world, living off your savings, or enjoying a comfortable retirement.

Moreover, money is still an uncomfortable or even taboo subject for many people. That’s why reading finance and investment books can be one of the most useful tools to improve your financial education and move more confidently toward your long-term goals. Learning to invest better should not be seen as something optional, but as a necessity. And few paths are more effective than reading good books and gradually building your own judgment.

Having that judgment will allow you to make increasingly solid decisions and depend less on external opinions, which are often biased, self-interested, or simply poorly grounded. And believe me: once you build a solid foundation, no financial guru, advisor, or manager will take better care of your money than you. I say this from experience.

In addition to books, we also encourage you to follow our weekly blog posts. Since its beginnings, inbestMe has had a clear commitment to financial education for clients and followers. And with an added advantage: it’s completely free.

You can now also follow us on our YouTube channel.

How we structure our book recommendations

The three books we recommend this year can complement other books we have recommended in previous years.

Therefore, after presenting these, there is a section at the end with more books according to the following classification:

• Beginner books (to learn the basic elements about money and investing; if you already master them, move on to the next level.)
• Essential books (books you should read at some point to gain a very solid understanding). If you already have basic knowledge, you can go directly to this section.
• Additional interesting books (although not essential, they help complete our knowledge)

If you have little knowledge, start with the beginner books.

As your level of understanding of topics related to investing and money improves, move on to the essential ones. You’ll see the list is quite long. Don’t worry. Reading one book per year or even every two years is more than enough. If you read and understand them, I can assure you that you will become very autonomous in your finances and in your investment decisions.

Most of the books have appeared in our previous book-related posts.

Others have not. We simply felt they deserved to be included for one reason or another.

In each section we have also included the three new books we propose so you can see where they fit.

Let’s start with the three new books proposed for this year.

Three New Finance Books for 2026

1-F*** You Money: De la libertad financiera a la libertad personal de Joan Tubau (read and recommended by Jordi Mercader, CEO and Co-founder of inbestMe)

This book goes beyond talking about money—it forces you to rethink something much more important: the relationship between money and time. The idea that true luxury is control over your schedule, or that wealth consists of not needing money, completely changes the usual perspective. At its core, the message is simple but powerful: saving is not about accumulating—it is about buying future freedom and keeping options open in an uncertain world.

I also found very interesting the way it questions many common behaviors, especially among the middle class: the obsession with status, visible consumption, or the use of credit. There is a clear critique of the financial system and how many decisions that seem rational actually limit our freedom. The concept of opportunity cost appears constantly and serves as a framework to understand that every financial decision implies giving something else up, often without realizing it.

Joan also advocates index investing as one of the best ways to invest in the long term. But the book is less a practical investment manual and more a reflection on how we want to live. That is where I believe its greatest value lies: it forces you to think about whether you are optimizing your life or simply following inertia.

Some ideas may be debatable or even provocative, but that is precisely why they work.

It is a book that does not seek to give you all the answers, but to help you ask better questions.

2- El valor del bienestar: Un enfoque holístico de las finanzas conductuales de Meir Statman (read and recommended by Pablo Tellería, Investor Relations at inbestMe)

A reading that makes you reflect on your own priorities and what truly matters. Statman argues that well-being goes beyond money, integrating values, relationships, and purpose. Financial well-being is achieved when we can meet present and future financial obligations, absorb financial setbacks, and continue moving toward our goals. Life well-being, on the other hand, is achieved when we live in a satisfying way, with meaning and purpose. Financial well-being is, however, the foundation of life well-being.

The Value of Well-Being connects behavioral economics with positive psychology and discusses financial, social, cultural, and personal capital; saving, spending, and investing; family and personal relationships; health, work, education, religion, and society.

Meir Statman is the Glenn Klimek Professor of Finance at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University (California, USA). His research focuses on behavioral finance, a field in which he is a leading academic authority.

3- Tu salud financiera de Esmeralda Gómez López (read and recommended by Jordi Martínez, Partner and Co-founder of inbestMe)

There is a moment, usually at the end of the month, when many of us look at our bank account and feel a kind of emptiness that is not just numerical. It is anxiety, frustration, the feeling of not fully understanding what happened to the money. That discomfort is precisely the starting point of Your Financial Health. Learn to Manage Your Personal Finances (Deusto), the new book by Esmeralda Gómez López. And the approach, already from the title, is revealing: the author does not talk about wealth, nor about becoming a millionaire, nor does she promise shortcuts. She talks about health, with all the connotations of balance, habit, and sustainability that the word carries.

Gómez López—mathematician specialized in Astrophysics, PhD in Economics, with an MBA, a Master’s in Quantitative Finance and another in Austrian Economics, as well as a decade in banking—reaches the reader with credentials that are uncommon in Spanish-language financial education: real rigor. And yet, the book is not an academic treatise. As Guzmán Urrero notes in his review for Cualia.es, the work “returns economics to its original place: that of everyday life, that of the human decisions that shape or undo a life.” That is perhaps its greatest virtue.

The book uses a medical analogy that works very well: just as physical health exists, there is also financial health that can be diagnosed, cared for, and trained. Based on this, it goes through the pillars of personal wealth—expense control, systematic saving, debt reduction, emergency fund, conscious investing, and tax planning—with practical exercises and real examples that bring theory down to earth.

However, it should be noted that it is not ideologically neutral, and this strongly shapes the reading. Gómez López has specific training in the Austrian school of economics, and that perspective runs throughout the text: emphasis on individual responsibility, skepticism toward the welfare state, and criticism of what Urrero accurately describes as “collectivist illusions that sell us security in exchange for autonomy.” The author does not address the reader as a victim of a system, but as an agent with the capacity—and duty—to manage themselves. For those who share this framework, it will be an invigorating book; for those who do not, there will be chapters that invite debate, particularly those dedicated to taxation and the role of the state.

What I find especially successful is that, despite this positioning, the book does not fall into the empty motivational tone of “get rich” nor into the catastrophism that is common in the genre. Its thesis is deeper: without economic self-determination, there is no real freedom. And to achieve it, one must understand the role of time, risks, incentives, taxes… everything that conditions our personal sovereignty over the years.

Who is it for? For those starting from scratch or feeling stuck, undoubtedly. But also for readers with some experience who want an organized framework and an honest diagnosis. Those looking for advanced market strategies will probably find it basic—that is not its purpose.

In summary: a work that replaces the wrong question (“how do I get rich?”) with the right one (“how do I build a healthy relationship with my money and, with it, my independence?”). It reads best when you understand where the author is coming from, but read that way, it succeeds.

Beginner Books

• Finanzas para frikis de Jordi Martinez (Socio y Co-fundador de inbestMe).
• Hazlo bien con tu dinero de Celia Rubio
• Invierte en tí de Natalia De Santiago
• Cuida tu bolsillo de Raquel Quelart Gomez

Essential books that should be read (ideally) at some point:

• Un Paseo Aleatorio por Wall Street” de Burton Malkiel 
• Stocks for the Long Run: Jeremy J. Siegel The Definitive Guide to Financial Market Returns & Long-Term Investment Strategies, Sixth Edition” de Jeremy J. Siegel
• Ganar Jugando a No Perder” de Charles D. Ellis
• La Guía Boglehead De Inversión (Autores varios)

Note: Bogleheads are a community of investors who share the values of Jack Bogle (founder of Vanguard). You can access a lot of information about investing at the following links (make sure it is up to date and remember that you should verify it, as there may be some bias toward Vanguard due to its origin):

• https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page
• https://bogleheads.es/guia (or in the Spanish version)
• Unconventional Success A fundamental Approach to Personal Investment de David F. Swensen
• Un Paso Por Delante De Wall Street de Peter Lynch
• Batiendo a Wall Street de Peter Lynch
• Common Sense On Mutual Funds de John C. Bogle
• “El Inversor Inteligente” de Benjamin Graham.
• “The intelligent Investor” de Benjamin Graham y comentada por Jason Z.Weig

Additional interesting or complementary books:

• Pensar Rápido, Pensar Despacio” de Daniel Kahneman
• Un hombre para todos los mercados de Edward O. Thorp
• La Psicología del Dinero de Morgan Housel
• The one-page financial plan de Carl Richards
• The Little Book of Valuation de Aswath Damodaran
• How Not to Invest: The Ideas, Numbers, and Behaviors That Destroy Wealth—and How to Avoid Them. Barry Ritholtz 
• Recuerdos de un operador de bolsa de Edwin Lefrevre
• Reminiscences of a Stock Operator By Edwin Lefrevre

Appendix: books in English or Spanish

You will see that some of the recommended books are only available in English. This is not by chance. In the United States, investing has been part of popular culture for much longer, supported by a more individual savings system, greater financial education, a more developed market, and a public conversation where investing is perceived as something quite common. In Europe, although this trend is advancing, it is still not as widespread.

For this reason, a large part of the reference literature on investing is first—and sometimes only—published in English. When a Spanish edition exists, we have included it. When not, we have kept the original title. In some cases, we have also chosen to include the English version even when a previous translation exists, because that specific edition provides additional value, for example with comments, notes, or revised content. And in some cases we show both versions precisely for that reason.

In addition, reading about investing in English is often easier than it seems for those with an intermediate or upper-intermediate level. It is often more accessible than narrative texts and, at the same time, allows readers to become familiar with terminology that is now widely used globally.