6 March 2025 is World Book Day – designed to promote the attraction and power of books, whether it’s from an educational or purely entertainment perspective.
Relaxing with a good book is still one of the best, and cheapest, ways to pass a couple of hours, or even a whole day if you’ve got someone to provide tea and sandwiches for you!
If you read any of these six recognised classic novels, you get the added bonus of a financial lesson or two alongside a great story and fine writing.
1. Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville
Let’s start your list on a whaler named The Pequod that sailed out of Nantucket – the setting for Herman Melville’s novel, which is often voted the greatest of all time.
Ostensibly they are hunting any whales they could catch, but Captain Ahab was looking for one whale in particular, and his obsession with Moby-Dick can teach you valuable lessons about investing your money.
Ahab single-mindedly chasing the whale that robbed him of a leg rather than settling for a less lucrative but still valuable other catch, illustrates the danger of becoming distracted by a potential big payout from a single stock or investment fund at the expense of a more considered approach.
More often than not it is better to spread your assets and focus on growing your wealth in a structured way, rather than obsessing about a single investment.
2. The Great Gatsby, by F Scott Fitzgerald
Unlike some of the other books on this list, which would take up a considerable amount of space on anyone’s bookshelf, F Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece is only 200 pages long.
As well as being an accessible read, it can teach you a lesson about the dangers of continually moving your financial goalposts to reach goals that prove unattainable.
It was written and published in the years leading up to the Wall Street crash of 1929, and reflects the attitudes prevalent at the time of conspicuous consumption during a boom that was believed to be permanent.
Millionaire Jay Gatsby epitomises this mood of excess through his ostentatious wealth. He continually throws parties to feed his desire, but never actually appears to be happy.
Money can’t necessarily buy you happiness, and conspicuous consumption just creates a scenario where you are never truly happy because you are constantly revising your horizons for the dopamine rush of the next big thing.
A structured, long-term savings and investment strategy can help drive your wealth and happiness far more effectively than short-term impulses.
3. Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert
Published in 1857, Flaubert’s story of the eponymous Emma Bovary is a well-known cautionary tale of how borrowing too much money can easily spiral out of control.
Dissatisfied with what she sees as a mundane provincial lifestyle, Emma falls under the spell of the dishonest merchant, Monsieur Lheureux, who tricks her into borrowing excessively to spend on clothes, jewellery, and home furnishings for herself and her lovers.
The result of her reckless borrowing is that her family home is eventually repossessed. Her remorse and distress at the situation she has created leads her to poisoning herself with arsenic.
The simple moral of this story is to keep unsecured debt to a minimum and avoid letting borrowing escalate to financially ruinous levels.
4. David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens
There are so many financial lessons from Dickens novels that you could come up with an entire article based on his works alone.
Destitution and philanthropy feature in many of his works, perhaps prompted by his own fear of poverty, and his father being put in a debtors’ prison.
For example, in David Copperfield, Wilkins Micawber, who himself ended in such a prison, comes up with a well-known expression that is often cited in encouragement to live within your means:
“Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 19 pounds 19 shillings and six pence, result happiness. Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 20 pounds ought and six, result misery.”
5. A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol is one of Dickens’ best-known works. It has resulted in the name of the Ebenezer Scrooge becoming synonymous with miserly and mean behaviour.
As you would expect, given the themes and underlying messages throughout the story, there are a whole series of financial lessons you can glean from Dickens’ tale.
These include:
- The benefits of altruism, as a contributory driver to your own happiness
- The importance of planning for your future, rather than focusing solely on the present
- The value of keeping up-to-date financial records, although perhaps not to the extent of Scrooge’s excessive detail.
These days, A Christmas Carol is probably more greatly appreciated on screen rather than as a novel, with a whole series of adaptations shown on TV each Christmas.
6. Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe
Defoe’s classic adventure story of a man who ends up trapped on a desert island for over 20 years includes a cautionary message about how to judge money.
After scavenging for items from his wrecked ship that may help him survive island life, including sail canvass, tools, and food, Crusoe appreciates the irony of how useless a cache of gold coins is when he finds them.
His reaction highlights the importance of seeing wealth accumulation as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself, and recognising the personal value of money in terms of your goals and aspirations rather than simply numbers on a page.
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Please note
The value of your investment can go down as well as up and you may not get back the full amount you invested. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.
This article is for information only, it does not take into account your personal objectives, financial situation, or needs. Please do not solely rely on anything you have read in this article and ensure that you conduct your own research to ensure any actions you may take are suitable for your circumstances.
