Stockpicking, globalisation and… cake bakes: This year’s best Xmas reads Book list compiled by Lawrence Gosling

Stuck on what to buy the financial services professional in your life for Christmas? How about an investment book? Lawrence Gosling runs through some of the titles that have hit our desks in recent weeks.

My current favourite out of the books we received in the office is Paul Mumford’s The Stock Picker, a history of the last 30 years from the perspective of the fund he has run and the companies he has invested in. Mumford (pictured), who is reckoned to be the longest serving fund manager on the same fund, is a classic stockpicker and if you spend more than half an hour with him you will see why.

He constantly gets calls from brokers and has an incredible knowledge of the companies he has or hasn’t invested in. His ‘process’ doesn’t neatly fit into the ‘tick-box’ analysis system many work under now but this book gives you a brilliant insight into the way a real, old school, but still very active, active investor works.

Miton’s Gervais Williams is now on to his third book, The Retreat of Globalisation, having really started the current trend for ‘patient capital’ with his first book Slow Finance five years ago. This time he is tackling the topical subject of the end of globalisation, which has been one interpretation of the Brexit and Trump votes this year.

Williams writes well – not always a given for fund managers – and his 30 years of investing experience gives his arguments credibility to my mind and this is an accessible read that makes you think a bit more than other books out currently.

Meanwhile, Leading Ladies is a delightful books written by an investment columnist Ro Rathour, now a retired portfolio manager from Sarasin, who decided to take her life in a different direction after decades in the markets. Each chapter is an interview with an ‘inspirational’ woman who has broken out of her old life to do something very different and these range from a director of Imperial Innovations, the university spin-out vehicle, to women in India, Singapore and the US.

They are great real life stories which make an uplifting read particularly at this time of the year when it is dark and cold and you may be asking yourself if you are brave enough to change career mid-life.

The answer this book gives is simple: Just do it, you have got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

• The Stock Picker – a financial history from the sharp end. Paul Mumford, Managed of the Cavendish Opportunities fund. Published by Harriman House. ISBN 978-0-857 19-554-8

• Leading Ladies by Rohini Rathour published by I_AM ISBN 978-1-911079-60-6on

• The Retreat of Globalisation by Gervais Williams published by Harriman House. ISBN 978-0-857 19-575-3

• Investing Through the Looking Glass By Tim Price. ISBN 9780857195364 Published by Harriman House.

• Intelligent Investors: How Top Fund Managers Think about Investing our Money By Lawrence Gosling and Jane Wallace ISBN 978-0-9934783-0-7 Over 20 interviews with leading fund managers like Neil Woodford, Richard Buxton, Nick Train, Angus Tulloch, and James Henderson about how they approach the challenge of investing. Simple stuff but very insightful, if we do say so ourselves.

Price: £20, which is donated 100% to the Incisive Media Foundation. Contact: Lawrence Gosling

• Incisive Recipes – Investment Week’s parent company Incisive Media released its first ever cookbook to raise money for its charity partners Place2Be, CHICKS and Mind. Supported by the Columbia Threadneedle Foundation it includes recipes from CTI CIO Mark Burgess to a decadent Christmas celebration cake and a gluten-free herbie bunny bread; there is something for everyone.

The book is available for a minimum £5 donation to the Incisive Media Foundation, postage free. Contact: Jayna Rana

Lawrence Gosling is editorial director of Professional Adviser and founding editor of its sister title Investment Week