Every year the market is flooded with investment books that tell you how to make your first million on the stock market and retire in comfort. But does anyone really get rich from reading these books? Is there anything new here?

A few years ago while a producer at CBC’s Business World, I asked a panel of such Bay Street investment managers as Ira Gluskin and Paul Bates whether anyone gets rich from reading these books and whether or not they dipped into such titles. That few were worth the time or money was unanimous, as was the opinion that Peter Lynch’s One Up on Wall Street was the most exceptional book published in the last few years. While Lynch’s book hasn’t been superseded yet, some of this season’s releases are useful for the neophyte investor.

Here’s a look at the recent crop of money-management books. With the exception of Laura Day’s Practical Intuition for Success, they’re all meat-and-potatoes guides aimed at those who don’t read the financial press. While the books aren’t ground-breaking, they are worth the time and money of people who’d like to be more in control of their finances and assets. Most are targeted at the greying “pig and python” effect, as the baby-boomer generation ages and faces retirement.

The Best of Pape’s Notes, by financial journalist and commentator Gordon Pape, is a collection of highlights from the last 15 years of his weekly show on CBC Radio called Pape’s Notes. The anthology covers such topics as taxes, mutual funds, the CPP, “get-rich-quick” shams, T-Bills, the Bre-X debacle, saving for retirement, and RRSPs. Each column ends with an update to make it current. Pape writes well and is probably one of the more informative Canadian pundits on personal finance. Although his new book is interesting, entertaining to read, and shows you how much things haven’t really changed, there’s not as much substance here as in his specialist volumes such as Gordon Pape’s Buyer’s Guide to Mutual Funds. The book is a good introduction for the beginner, covers much ground, and would be of interest to devotees of Pape’s radio program.

The financial novice might be better served by looking at Personal Finance for Dummies for Canadians. This publication is one of the popular detailed reference guides with the familiar canary yellow covers that serve as introductions for anything from beer tasting to creating web sites. Author Eric Tyson has written five other Dummies books on personal finance and has contributed to national print and television media in the U.S. The book is co-authored by Tony Martin, a financial journalist and regular contributor to national Canadian newspapers, who was the senior producer for Money$worth. The book covers the investment basics: insurance; financial independence; how to manage your finances and save; real estate; and saving for tuition. It’s a good reference book for those who can’t afford a financial advisor and want to be more knowledgeable about managing their finances.

Gail Vaz-Oxlade’s Retirement Answer Book takes aim at the current boom in demand for retirement advice due to an aging population. Again, this is a book for beginners as Vaz-Oxlade explains the basics well, and includes helpful charts for setting your retirement plan and making money work for you. Vaz-Oxlade is a well-known Toronto writer and financial planner who has written guides about finance and children and other books in the Answer Book series on RRSPs, borrowing, and retirement. It’s a good start for those who need help in planning their retirement.

The 50+ Survival Guide: Winning Strategies for Wealth, Health and Lifestyle by CARPNews publisher and editor David Tafler is a readable look at many retirement issues. The book is divided into three sections: leisure and lifestyle, your money, and your health. Tafler writes well, not surprisingly given his long career as a financial journalist. Like Pape’s, this is a book written in an informative and entertaining style with up-to-the-minute information and tips on everything from avoiding bacteria if hospitalized, to out-of-country residence, travel, and nutrition. Since the book covers many topics, Tafler writes concisely – but not superficially. As the focus is broader, it will probably give the book a large audience.

Everyone knows a successful businessperson who acts on hunches and visceral instinct. One of the more intriguing offerings for the liberal thinker, and a variation on the preceding nuts-and-bolts approach to money, is Laura Day’s Practical Intuition for Success, a program to make financial decisions by developing intuition. Day is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Practical Intuition, and a New York-based consultant to celebrities, business executives, and professionals. I’ve read and done exercises from her first book and found that, for the most part, they do work. For example, I used it to predict the price of gold and the winner of last spring’s Kentucky Derby.

Day’s second book focuses on career issues and includes advice on career planning, investing, hiring negotiations, and corporate strategy. Each section has exercises to develop intuition and help readers tap into unconscious knowledge about a current dilemma. This is one of the better self-help books, more practical in its style and without New-Age blather. It’s a guide to getting in touch with our own common sense, using it daily, and making it a more conscious part of our lives.