The Handbook of Fixed Income Securities

This monstrosity (over a thousand pages long) is at best a mediocre work of reference. Whether you are interested in fixed income from a qualitative or a quantitative perspective, you are strongly advised to stay away from this book. First it is poorly written, extremely wordy and perplexingly disorganized. Second there is no serious discussion of the ideas and mathematics used to price the securities treated. A few mathematical formulas with zero motivation whatsoever are thrown here and there. Where the formulas come from is never explained. If you are an individual trying to learn fixed income, Fixed Income Securities: Tools for Today's Markets, Second Edition, University Edition by Tuckman is a good introductory text that reads like a novel, without dumbing down the subject. The only people who have a reason to buy this book are employees who can use company money to pay for it, and do not plan on ever reading it. Aside from serving as a reference to look up some terminology, this book is mostly useless and nobody should waste their own money on it. There are too many worthy alternatives.