I've read many books about money, building wealth, etc. While many have been helpful, insightful, etc., I've settled on the following collection of discourses more than any book as the most solid foundation for financial understanding, even if they require a bit more study to tease out the principles.
- The Use & Abuse of Blessings by Brigham Young -- https://jod.mrm.org/1/248
- True and False Riches by Brigham Young -- https://jod.mrm.org/1/264
- Constancy Amid Change by N. Eldon Tanner -- https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1979/10/constancy-amid-change?lang=eng
- Household of Faith by Bishop Clarke -- https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1980/10/the-household-of-faith?lang=eng
That said, I did recently find one book that was more holistically complete about generating wealth than any other I've read:
- Katie Bell and the Wishing Well by Nephi Zufelt
Admittedly, I've read better written books, but it's solid enough that I can't not recommend it.
Lastly I'll comment about money itself. This is just a nugget I've teased out from my own study.
Money is a medium of exchange. It's a technological blessing! It makes so many more products and services possible. Imagine having to barter without money -- what good or service would you give a farmer in exchange for food? How often? And with how many, to get different types of food? What would you offer a builder for a home? Or rather, the framer, the plumber, the electrician, the hvac guy, the drywall, the... and on and on. Personally, I can't imagine going to the grocery store (if those would even be possible) and saying "hey, can I write you up a few lines of back-end server code for some bananas, oatmeal, eggs, and yogurt today?" lol!
Money is a technological blessing as a medium of exchange!
A currency is a specific implementation of money, e.g. dollar, peso, bitcoin, etc.
There are three requirements for an effective currency:
1) Ease of Use -- if each dollar were a 1 lb igneous rock, imagine how heavy and hard that would be to lug around. And what a pain to have to weigh them with every exchange! Credit / Debit cards and other connected electronic systems have improved ease-of-use even further. (Some may find there to be unworthy trade-offs, here, but such tech does increase ease-of-use.) Ease of use also includes how easy it is to keep secure from theft.
2) Transparent Supply Management -- How scarce (or not) is the supply? How does it get inflated / deflated? How clearly well known is that to the society that uses it? (Inflation, btw, is not rising prices, it is an increase in the currency supply, nothing more, nothing less. Rising prices is an effect of inflation as the decreased scarcity also decreases the value.) This includes, how easy is it to counterfeit? If easy, it will not serve as good money because it can be inflated without transparency. Transparent supply management is crucial to the societal credibility of the currency in question.
3) Trust of social use / adoption -- I'm not going to accept a specific currency as exchange from you unless I believe I can exchange it somewhere else for something I want. It may as well be monopoly money at that point. Sometimes this comes by a ruling government saying "you will accept this currency or else." In a free market system, this often comes by "backing" the currency with an already trusted money or asset, e.g. gold. So even if I don't trust that I can exchange your currency with someone else to get what I want, I know that I can exchange it for an asset that I will be able to then exchange with someone to get what I want.
