The Richest Man in Town by W. Randall Jones bills itself as containing the “inside secrets of America’s self-made millionaires.” In it, Jones talks about the Twelve Commandments of Wealth, illustrating each with quotes and stories from the richest men and women from a variety of cities across the United States.

W. Randall Jones is a pretty rich man himself, having founded Worth Magazine, and in this book he spent two years interviewing local business editors and community leaders in a hundred towns to find the most successful and richest self-made individuals in each. 96 of the 100 were men, which, coupled with simplicity, gives us the title of the book. From there, he used public data to value their holdings to estimate their net worth, which is to say it’s a guess. Either way, the stories and quotes you read in the book come from very rich and successful people, even if they aren’t #1.

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Those of you who have read some of older book reviews may know that I’m a sucker for books that go “behind the scenes” of someone’s life or the machinations of a profession. It’s what drew me to Scratch Beginnings by Adam Shepard (which showed you a bit of how the homeless live), Full of Bull by Stephen McClellan (which showed you the thriving BS trade in the stock market), and many other books. Well, Rich Like Them is another one of those books and this time it seeks to guide you in a path towards riches based on interviews with rich people.

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