"You're Kidding, Right?" by Brad Goldfarb is an unusual book on investing. It doesn’t readily tell readers to invest in stocks and bonds so that they can make money. Instead, Brad Goldfarb shares the pitfalls in investing from his 35 years’ experience as a financial advisor. The book is based on his actual experiences with his clients. The book starts with the section “Why I Wrote This Book”. It is then followed by three main sections, which are “Behavioral Finance”, “Thirty-Five Years of Actual Quotes from Clients”, and “The Mystery Solved for Analysis and Investing”. There is a total of 37 chapters within the three main sections.

It is a fact of life that many people lose money while investing in stocks and bonds. This is why "You're Kidding, Right?" by Brad Goldfarb is such a valuable resource. Based on his real-life experience, in Section 1 Brad Goldfarb shares the mystery behind behavioral finance and emotional investing, which describes the different emotional states typical investors go through during investing – how enlightening. In Section 2, Brad Goldfarb cites 30 quotes from his clients and gives his professional responses. I really like the responses because they are full of insights. The quotes clearly show that many people are investing in misconceptions. To point the investors in the right direction, in Section 3 Brad Goldfarb shares the tools and information that are useful to investors. The first one is the simple three-step formula for success. Wow, what a good book. A must-read for investors and potential investors.

“You’re Kidding, Right?” by Brad Goldfarb is a non-fiction finance book that takes an entirely different approach to the self-help investment genre; instead of telling you what you should do, Goldfarb, for the most part, takes a 'what you should not do' approach. Yes, telling someone what they shouldn't do could be described as still implying what should be done, but in this book, Goldfarb puts the bulk of his expertise in the unique format of Frequently Asked Questions. Stepping even further away from the status quo, Goldfarb uses questions he's actually fielded from hopeful investors with the answers he provided after the initial incredulous question of his own, “You're kidding, right?”

Right off the bat Brad Goldfarb sets the tone of one that balances the serious nature of investing in securities and the right amount of acerbic humor to keep a reader engaged. This mix is difficult to achieve because slanting even a little too heavily onto either side could spell trouble for a book that would otherwise be well received. I think the fact that Goldfarb is able to simultaneously inform and entertain creates somewhat of an immediate endearment to a writer and that makes the whole reading experience so much better. The most informative piece for me was in Chapter 29, which deals with the misconceptions around reverse mortgages. The most hilarious was Chapter 20, where Goldfarb points out how people will camp outside a store to grab a Black Friday deal but for some reason are uncomfortable buying stocks when they themselves appear to be on sale. This is an excellent book with a lot to offer and I imagine many will feel the same.

“You’re Kidding, Right?” is a work of non-fiction centered on the business and finance world, and was penned by author Brad Goldfarb. Based on the real-life experiences of the author over more than three decades, the work focuses on helping investors to avoid popular pitfalls. Discussing such fascinating topics as behavioral finance and emotional investing, Goldfarb presents a series of typical quotes from common mistakes and then expands on them to explore why these ideas are fallacies, and what we can do better to improve our chances of ROI and good decision-making in the future. What results is a charming, friendly, and highly practical approach to investing in your financial future.

Author Brad Goldfarb has crafted a work that will be very engaging for those who are both new to the investment world, and those who have been dabbling for a while but are not seeing the results they desire. One of the things which I really enjoyed about this work was the balance between the advice of a clearly sage professional in the field and the tone and humor of a friend who can offer you insights that you can trust. The organization, chapter titles, themes, and wordplay of the work really give it a high readability factor regardless of your level going in, with jargon kept to a minimum. I also found the diagrams to be really helpful and well-illustrated for certain key points. Overall, I would highly recommend “You’re Kidding, Right?” for all readers intrigued by the financial world.

“You’re Kidding, Right?” by Brad Goldfarb has to be the most useful finance book you'll read this year. Having been a financial advisor for 35 years, this book could easily have been one of those famous financial memoirs on how a money mogul made his or her mark in the world of investments. But this isn't one of those books, and you'll be better off for it--hopefully financially, but definitely emotionally as well, as this one offers an angle most financial books don't, and that's humor. Over the length of his successful career, Goldfarb has been asked many questions, and when he gave the answer, the response was usually "You're kidding, right?" Thus the title of the book. The author constructed his book around 30 of those most-asked questions, and readers will be entertained as well as educated by them.

I like many things about this book, but my favorite has to be Goldfarb's understanding of money. His ability to convey complex ideas in a simplistic form is appreciated. He anchors most if not all of his ideas on his observation that most people approach and handle money from their emotions, not logic or planning. Recognizing this, he helped investors make better decisions, basing his practices on the Nobel prize-winning theory, Behavioral Economics. The aim of the author is to educate readers from his expertise, not necessarily tell them what to do--basically passing on information that will help readers avoid taking wrong turns in troubled markets. The anecdotes are entertaining and enlightening, the tone is conversational and casual. Overall, “You’re Kidding, Right?” by Brad Goldfarb is the book you need before investing another dime.