Nassim Taleb, author of popular books on finance and probability such as Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan, provides Farnamstreet blog with a long list of 47 reading recommendations. The selection ranges widely from finance, economics and philosophy to weight loss and medical research. The reviews are worth reading if only for the scathing analysis of the popular book Stocks for the Long Run.

Thinking about money influences our purchasing decisions by getting us to think in a more abstract way, according to an article in US News. Reports show that those primed with money thoughts reflect on the central features of products rather than extra add-ons. For example, money conscious buyers care more about how well a dishwasher cleans dishes than the number of settings.

A recent article by Chris Dillow for Investors Chronicle suggests that too much information can actually work against you when making investment decisions, such as choosing which funds to place in a pension fund. He cites research showing that traditional rules of thumb can work as effectively as complex mathematical techniques and the main errors to avoid are overtrading and buying too much of the similar assets.