You can make it more complicated, but successful financial planning has only two major parts. First, you figure out your goals: “I want to make sure my kids can attend a good college,” or, “I want to retire in style in Tuscany,” or, “I just want to make ends meet when I can’t work any longer.” Then you determine the steps most likely to achieve them. Two new books leave it up to you to determine your goals, presumably because what you want to achieve can be as unique as you are. Instead, in...

Chelsea Fagan sets herself a high bar in writing “The Financial Diet” (Henry Holt, $19): She wants to prove to people who know little about personal finance that investing is both vital and not all that difficult. Does she deliver? Yes, and surprisingly well. If you had to give her a grade, it would be a solid “B” because of both her supportive tone and her ability to reduce what can be fairly complicated concepts — such as how you put together a comprehensive investment plan — to easily...

Here’s the problem: It’s summertime and, yes, we know we should still be paying attention to personal finance issues. But really. If we’re lucky enough to get away for a few days, do we actually want to take a book about investing to the beach? Publishers have inadvertently solved the problem for us. A number of novels with personal finance themes are coming out this summer. Let’s look at three of them containing lessons on managing money. My favorite: “The Windfall” (Crown, $26), by Diksha...