There are so many great books to read. The novels of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley greatly influenced my views when I was younger and, more recently, Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela is a book that brings true inspiration and hope.

I tend to have a pile of books that I read at the same time. Presently, this includes Buy-ology by Martin Lindstrom. The book takes a long hard look at the billion-dollar advertising industry and what makes some things sell while others are instantly forgettable.

What to Listen for in Music by Aaron Copland and Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky are also books I have recently read and enjoyed for different reasons. Born in Brooklyn in 1939, Copland has justifiably been vaunted as the first genuine American composer. His book is by no means the first to translate the experience of listening to classical music, but to me it is a superb attempt to unravel the amazing world of creating music.

Demons charts the plague of foreign political and philosophical ideas that swept Russia in the second half of the 19th century. Dostoyevsky writes about Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky, an affable thinker who does little to turn his liberal ideas into action and creates a monster in his student, Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin. As a result, Stavrogin takes his spiritual father's teaching to heart, joining a circle of other nihilists who will justify any violent excesses for the sake of their ideas.

I tend to do most of my reading when travelling and just before I go to sleep, while holidays are a great time to catch up on reading. I find a lot of today's business books repetitive, so they need to be targeted at a specific area. Given the financial turbulence recently, I have been reading about the psychology of investor behaviour in Beyond Greed and Fear by Hersh Shefrin. I also recently re-read The Great Crash of 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith, a book that reminds me of how we have experienced fear and greed before.

I believe books written about behavioural finance are definitely interesting for non-professionals, as the behaviour applies not just to financial matters. For example, why do people smoke despite the evidence that it is a major cause of premature death?

I ignore get-rich-quick books. Many people think financial planning is modern, but this quote from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen in 1813 proves otherwise: 'Mr Bennet had very often wished ... that instead of spending his whole income he had laid by an annual sum for the better provision of his children, and of his wife.'

Asked to recommend books to friends, I would suggest Beyond Greed and Fear because it helps people understand that markets are run on emotions and that people do not always behave in ways that you would expect. The Great Crash of 1929 helps us to understand the differences between then and what is happening today. And, finally, I would recommend The Wine Diet by Roger Corder as it proves how good it is to drink wine. After all, we do need a good dose of happiness and a taste of the fine things in life.