Irrational Exuberance
Nobel laureate Shiller's analysis of how narratives and social dynamics — not just fundamentals — drive asset prices. Published in March 2000, months before the dot-com crash, it introduced the CAPE ratio (now the most widely used valuation metric) and laid the groundwork for 'narrative economics.' Academic in tone but prophetic in timing.
Shiller writes like the economist he is: survey data, regression tables, and prose that keeps clearing its throat. The core insight (prices ride stories, not fundamentals) fits in a chapter; the rest is documentation. And CAPE, his famous ratio, has called stocks expensive for most of the decades since. A perfect call in 2000 does not make a timing tool.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
