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A review by merqri
The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
2.0
The Richest Man in Babylon is a financial advice book. This was published first in 1926. From that time a lot has changed, but the core financial tenets of this book still hold strong. However, a lot has changed in the ways of writing and information transfer too. This is where the book falls short.
There are some very valuable lessons here. The primary one being save at least 1/10th of what you earn no matter what. Rest of the book is a set of ground rules about how not to be stupid with your money. Then there is one thought-provoking quote,
This comes towards the end, coupled with another insight into repayment of debt. 20% of your income should be allocated to repayment of your debts and not much more. The point he makes twice is how an empty stomach loses sustainability. I liked how one of the protagonists limits his debt repayment outflow to 20% and justifies that, he also needs to feel happy and content with what he earns to continue doing the repayments regularly.
After reading this book I have started wondering if one should rate/recommend a book if its content has waned or better represented elsewhere. Do you still hold the book in high regard and apply to it the scales of the times when it was written? Or since you are reading it today, and applying what you gain from it in the society today, should they book strictly be valued for the current times? I don't have the answer to that, but this dilemma is here to stay for me.
If you feel this paragraph above, which is relevant considering I started thinking on those lines while reading this book, is a digression from a review, then this is what I continuously kept feeling when I was reading the book. Especially later chapters are verbose allegories written in archaic English for no discernable reason. dost, hast, thou are not the words often seen in a financial advisory. Not sure if these words were in vogue in 1926 when this book was first published, but in 2021, they make the prose much more opaque for no reason.
At ~90 pages, this is a quick read. Today, most of its core content can be well summarized in a blog post on a financial website. This book can still go through some serious editing to actually make it of a length of a blog post.
Overall, this is an okay read. If you read the first 3-4 paragraphs of this review, then you have pretty much covered the crux of the book.
There are some very valuable lessons here. The primary one being save at least 1/10th of what you earn no matter what. Rest of the book is a set of ground rules about how not to be stupid with your money. Then there is one thought-provoking quote,
That man who keepeth in his purse both gold and silver that he need not spend is good to his family and loyal to his king. “The man who hath but a few coppers in his purse is indifferent to his family and indifferent to his king. “But the man who hath naught in his purse is unkind to his family and is disloyal to his king, for his own heart is bitter."
This comes towards the end, coupled with another insight into repayment of debt. 20% of your income should be allocated to repayment of your debts and not much more. The point he makes twice is how an empty stomach loses sustainability. I liked how one of the protagonists limits his debt repayment outflow to 20% and justifies that, he also needs to feel happy and content with what he earns to continue doing the repayments regularly.
After reading this book I have started wondering if one should rate/recommend a book if its content has waned or better represented elsewhere. Do you still hold the book in high regard and apply to it the scales of the times when it was written? Or since you are reading it today, and applying what you gain from it in the society today, should they book strictly be valued for the current times? I don't have the answer to that, but this dilemma is here to stay for me.
If you feel this paragraph above, which is relevant considering I started thinking on those lines while reading this book, is a digression from a review, then this is what I continuously kept feeling when I was reading the book. Especially later chapters are verbose allegories written in archaic English for no discernable reason. dost, hast, thou are not the words often seen in a financial advisory. Not sure if these words were in vogue in 1926 when this book was first published, but in 2021, they make the prose much more opaque for no reason.
At ~90 pages, this is a quick read. Today, most of its core content can be well summarized in a blog post on a financial website. This book can still go through some serious editing to actually make it of a length of a blog post.
Overall, this is an okay read. If you read the first 3-4 paragraphs of this review, then you have pretty much covered the crux of the book.