"Money can buy you happiness", says Stella Shamoon, "for it empowers you to realise your aspirations and ambitions." Through seven steps, Shamoon will help you create personal finance wealth. Unlike many personal finance books, though, Shamoon"s writing style is pleasurable and breezy. Further, as a former newspaper journalist, she gives readers bite-size, easily digestible nuggets as opposed to professorial tomes. The first part of the book focuses on her own personal financial journey: a redundancy forced her to take stock of her personal financial situation. She has invested in shares and has done quite well. She adopts the view that the reader has all the resources--financial and intellectual--to undertake serious wealth creation. "Condition yourself for wealth" is step number one. Attitude is key: "whether you think you can do it or you think you cannot--you are right! Your confidence in your ability to master the basic steps to creating real wealth is crucial."The second step is to create an investment plan based on your circumstances and fears, or lack thereof. She provides an overview about all the various ways you can invest your money and then focuses on property and shares. Clearly, shares are her love: "Private investors will profit over the long term by ignoring the advice industry--investment is an art. Enthusiastic amateurs do it better." Shamoon offers a checklist of dos and don"ts for investing in shares and her 35 suggestions are powerful, if inconsistent (at one point we are reassured: "don"t worry about not doing conventional research", while later we are urged to research intensively). She suggests investing in superlative companies--fast-growing, world beaters and holding them. This has certainly been the best strategy of the late 1990s. But the investment world will change--as it always does--during the decade ahead, leading to investing in other types of company, perhaps smaller companies or value shares. In summary, Real Wealth Creation offers a very personal, easy-to-read guide to improving your financial situation. --Bruce McWilliams