Reddit mentions of DisneyWar

It's kind of shame that there aren't more good books out there on these topics. And that a lot of what is out there is shameless self-help-style wankery.

Here's what I'd suggest: Jump straight into good stories about finance, and pick-up the lingo and concepts as you go. Investopedia -- despite the cheesey name -- is a great resource for when you encounter an idea with which you're unfamiliar.

Good stories about finance include:

• Michael Lewis has, to my knowledge, never written a bad book, but Liar's Poker and The Big Short are great places to start.
  
• Roger Lowenstein's When Genius Failed is a good story about the hubris of hedge funds.
  
• James Stewart's Den of Thieves does a great job of covering the bond market and the white-collar insider-trading scandals of the 1980s. His Disney War is also a great introduction to corporate governance, in addition to being a novel-esque good read.
  
  On a more abstract, less story-based level, you might also look at:
  
  
  
• Taleb's Fooled by Randomness, the precursor to the much-lauded "Black Swan" (and in my opinion, the much superior book).
  
• Bernstein's Against the Gods, which gives a broad (and accessible) tour of how humans throughout history came to understand and build whole markets around probability and risk.
  
  Good luck!