People have really strong feelings about books. See the tweet below:

So it not surprising that there is a debate raging online as to how many books you should keep around the house. It largely centers around the advice of Marie Kondo of The Life-Changing Magic of Tiding Up and the new Netflix show of the same similar name.  If you want to dive into the debate here you can find the case for letting books go and here you can find the case for keeping more books around.

I think most people would agree that clutter, in and of itself, is not a positive thing. I doubt there are many people out there reading this who think their own place of residence or workplace couldn’t use with some tidying up. The effort to clean and tidy up should not be taken lightly. It requires time, effort and maybe even money. As with all things in life there is a trade-off.

Books are different. At their best they can become fundamental building blocks of our personality and worldview. So imbuing books with value beyond their dollar value is entirely understandable. However our ethos in running Abnormal Returns has been to return books back into the world so that they can (hopefully) provide value to some other person.

[STOP READING HERE. Entries to the book giveaway are now closed. Thanks for reading this far.]

Due to a recent move we have a box full of books that need to find another home. So instead of dropping them at the local public library I am conducting a big *ss, random book giveaway. For better or worse, there are simply too many books to try and match them individually with readers. The vast majority of the books are investment or finance-related but there is smattering or history, social science etc. So if you are up to challenge and want a free (random) book see the instructions below.

  1. Enable Market Moment on your Alexa-enabled device so you can can a daily dose of market history from me and colleagues at Ritholtz Wealth Management.*
  2. Sign-up for the Abnormal Returns daily e-mail. Follow us on Twitter, StockTwits, LinkedIn or Facebook.**
  3. Send us an e-mail at newsletter—at—-abnormalreturns.com with Big *ss book giveaway in the subject line. Please include your name and mailing address (US only!).***
  4. First come, first serve. When the books are gone, they are gone…and no you can’t request one by name.
  5. We’ll send you an e-mail that a book is on the way.

What you do next is up to you. Read the book, pass it along to a friend, donate it the local public library or start your own little free library. Heck sell it if you want to. Whatever you do we hope you enjoy your new book and thanks once again for reading Abnormal Returns.

*We’ll take your word for it.

**Seriously.

***US mailing addresses only. Sending books overseas is simply not cost-effective.

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