Books by author: John C. Bogle

In this book, Bogle goes over much of the same territory covered by David Swensen in Unconventional Success. He shows in no uncertain terms that actively managed mutual funds are a surefire way to get inadequate returns on your investments. By putting your money in a market spanning index fund, like the Vanguard S&P 500 index Bogle himself created, you will see substantially better long-term returns than more than 90% of all mutual funds.

Bogle explains this much more clearly than Swensen, but he doesn't quite give you everything you need. He suggests that asset allocation among different asset classes is important, but he doesn't write at all about target percentages or rebalancing, whereas Swensen is much more explicit in that area.

I'm following a buy-and-hold strategy in my retirement investments, using Vanguard index funds and ETFs where I can (my 401k doesn't make them available, so I'm fudging things a bit there), and I'm trying to use new contributions to rebalance rather than incur extra fees (and churn) by explicitly rebalancing. I'm confident that Bogle would approve.