Here are some of my personal favorites:<p>1) The Millionaire Next Door
2) The Intelligent Investor (must read!)
3) How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt, and Live Prosperously
4) Your Money or Your Life
5) I Will Teach You to Be Rich (relevant to you at your age)
6) Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes, and How to Correct Them (short and sweet)
7) The Rational Optimist (not specifically about personal finance but a great read about behavior)<p>Hope this helps, and if you ever want to discuss personal finance in more detail feel free to reach out, love helping!
A couple of online resources:
<a href="http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/</a>
<a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/frugal" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/frugal</a><p>The simplest possible advice from an old fart is to save 10% of whatever you make, right now! While you're doing this research, start saving/paying down debt. You have the magic of compound interest on your side.<p>As for where, since mutual fund managers are judged against indexes, and most don't beat them, stashing your cash in a broad index/no-load mutual fund makes sense to me, and it's what I do. If you think the economy is going to collapse when your retirement nears (or sooner), then gold, guns and ammo are the alternative ;-)<p><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardfinger/2013/04/15/five-reasons-your-mutual-fund-probably-underperforms-the-market/" rel="nofollow">http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardfinger/2013/04/15/five-re...</a>