Best Books 2009

In for a Penny: A Business Adventure
Peter Hargreaves

Harriman House £9.99
244 pages
ISBN 9781905641949

Few financial advisors are as outspoken or as loved and loathed as Peter Hargreaves. But backing him has generally been the way to bet for more than 20 years. His unflinching opinions have often proved right, such as when he smelled a rat at Barlow Clowes and Equitable Life or more recently pointed out that overpromoted property funds must crash. They did. This book explains how he went from counting rolls in his Father’s Clitheroe bakery to floating Hargreaves Lansdown for £800 million on the Stock Exchange. It also demonstrates that you don’t have to be solemn to be serious – or to make a lot of money.