Those investors still recovering from the burst of the dotcom bubble will appreciate Active Investing: Take Charge of Your Portfolio in Today’s Unpredictable Markets. Author Peter Sander, an MBA who has written Value Investment for Dummies, among other finance books, believes that the new and forever-changed financial climate requires active investing, which means staying on top of the bull no matter which way it bolts. This guide is written for the highly motivated amateur who has the time to check into the markets a few times a day, but doesn’t want to get caught up in trends and excesses. Active Investing includes chapters on solid print and online investment resources; trading tools and techniques; designing a portfolio of blended vehicles including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, options and value investing; as well as day trading, swing trading and a specialized investing potpourri. Sander’s approach isn’t for the casual or lazy investor, but could help the time-compromised find a way to keep their fingers in the market without getting burned.

Reading Jim Cramer’s Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World is like overhearing a barstool monologue by a streetwise MBA from the School of Hard Knocks: if you interrupt with a dumb question, be prepared for a blunt answer that may blow your assumptions clear out of the proverbial water. Cramer is co-founder of TheStreet.com, author of Confessions of a Street Addict, columnist for New York magazine, and hyperactive host of CNBC’s Mad Money and the nationally syndicated radio program Real Money. In Real Money, Cramer presents a regimen to riches for investors with bloated theories who feel defeated by every decline in the stock market. Cramer doesn’t believe in the current if you can’t beat the market become the market via index funds mentality. Instead, he sets about teaching how he made hundreds of millions as a professional investor using common sense and simple arithmetic precepts that no longer stump my 10-year-old. He punches back at some arrogant and dumb theories in his Ten Commandments of Trading (tips are for waiters; don’t trade headlines; never turn a buy into an investment) and 25 Investing Tips to Live By (look for broken stocks, not broken companies; why discipline trumps conviction; hope is not part of the equation). Cramer’s cocky style retrains the amateur in how stocks are meant to be traded and how to spot stock moves as well as those topping or bottoming out before they happen, perhaps turning some of this century’s reluctant investors into people who might actually enjoy managing their own retirement fund.

Money and emotions are intertwined, and Conscious Spending for Couples: Seven Skills for Financial Harmony by Deborah Knuckey covers both topics with a unique blend of practical steps and psychological insights. The author of The Ms. Spent Money Guide explores how men and women feel about money, examines their different attitudes and beliefs, and lays out three rules, seven skills and four decisions to help balance the “mine, yours, and ours” goals.

Conscious Spending is an interactive book that uses practical quizzes, checklists and other resources to teach couples to become “conscious spenders.” Knuckey’s seven skills include planning together, getting help when you need it and creating a simple financial structure that both parties can follow. Then couples can tackle the four decisions: where you live, what you drive, whether you have children, when you retire. Knuckey stresses communication, noting that money has become a taboo topic that many people find hard to discuss, even in an intimate relationship. A perfect book for newlyweds or any couple mired in debate over whether to spend or save.

Authors Mark Victor Hansen, co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, and Robert Allen, author of bestsellers such as Nothing Down, want to create a million millionaires. Every 60 seconds, someone becomes a millionaire, and their goal is to help people one minute at a time. Their first tool is The One Minute Millionaire: The Enlightened Way to Wealth (Harmony, $19.95, 416 pages, ISBN 0609609491), a unique book that uses both fiction and nonfiction to explain their ideas. Left-hand pages provide summaries of their nuts and bolts information in short lessons called Millionaire Minutes, which cover topics like leverage, real estate and marketing. Right-hand pages tell the fictional story of Michelle, a waitress and mother of two who has just 100 days to come up with $1 million dollars to save her family.

With ethics in business in seemingly short supply, Hansen and Allen’s goal of finding win/win solutions is refreshing. Their motto: Do no harm, do much good and operate out of stewardship. Both men contribute 10 percent of their earnings to their communities and want to inspire the same spirit in future millionaires. “Enlightened millionaires” not only build wealth but also make the world a better place.

If you want specific, concrete steps to lead you to your first million, Hansen and Allen’s plan for earning fast cash might be disappointing. Their road to riches takes you up a “millionaire mountain” and into the stock market, real estate or the Internet. But their advice is often generalities like “tap into your genius” and “you are your wealth” that don’t yield practical, money in your pocket results.

More valuable are their insights into our own sabotaging behavior. They describe the voice in all of us that wreaks havoc by “leaving landmines, setting ambushes, [or] blowing up your own bridges” and give advice on building congruence between your beliefs, your desires and your self-esteem. When those three elements are working toward the same goals, nothing can hold you back, the authors say. Leverage relationships with mentors, teams and networks are also important because “the person with the largest network of Rolodexes wins.” They suggest you start building that network by taking a millionaire to lunch each month and asking how they found success.