Investment primer charts path for beginners

— -- Sometimes the very best books are the simplest. And that's the beauty of Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in your Twenties and Thirties. It offers the fundamental ABCs of how to manage your money.

Originally penned more than a decade ago by Beth Kobliner, a former staff writer for Money magazine and financial columnist for Glamour, the revised and updated edition is a model personal finance primer. Its return to the bookshelves couldn't come at a better time for a new crop of young people beset by today's financial meltdown.

The latest version delivers a dose of present day reality. For example: "It's easy these days to write off the idea of contributing to retirement savings accounts like 401(k)s," Kobliner writes. "You've heard scary stories of people losing half their life savings in the chaos of the market. ... You don't feel like you have any money to squirrel away. ... You're off the hook, right? Wrong.

"401(k)s are the best savings opportunity you can possibly have — in this or any economy. And not taking advantage of them while you're young is a huge (and costly) mistake," she writes. She goes on to discuss how 401(k)s are "supersmart savings accounts" that "offer terrific tax advantages that allow your money to grow exponentially fast."

Aside from the occasional au courant nod to collapsing investment portfolios, in general, Kobliner sticks pretty close to her original recipe of straightforwardly defining basic financial terms, such as mortgage, mutual fund and money market accounts.

After all, she's addressing an audience she presumes is clueless, or at the very least, one that has given little thought to these matters. That is until now, when they're holding a diploma and $25,000 in student loans and credit card debt, looking for a job in this tight economy, living on an entry-level salary or hoping to buy a first home.

Kobliner's book is a gentle guide, carefully walking her money neophytes through the nuts and bolts of personal finance.