I've never read Dodd & Graham directly, but have obviously heard lots about it as it is one of the seminal works in investment theory. However, consider this from WP:

>However, in the 1970s Graham stopped advocating a careful use of the techniques described in his text in selecting individual stocks, citing the extensive efforts and costs required to generate superior returns in a modern efficient market. Instead, Graham later suggested the use of one or two simple criteria to the investor's entire portfolio, focusing on results of the group rather than on individual securities.

Investment theory has come a long, long way since the 1930s. Hell, it's come a long way since the late 90s. In the 80s and 90s, some of the smartest people in the world came up with some fantastically complex algorithms (coupled with their generally high knowledge of global trends in various industries and markets) to generate astronomical returns (look up Long Term Capital Management).

Trouble is, Benoit Mandelbrot was right. If you look at any stock chart, you'll see that regardless of the time scale, the ups and downs tend to look very similar. No matter what you won't find a stock market that goes up forever. You won't find a bond market that has high rates forever. You won't find a country that stays in boom times forever. And worst of all, you won't (just by looking at the data) be able to tell when "the big one" is going to hit. LTCM got hosed by the Asian financial crisis of the late 90s, and everyone thought they'd finally found "the formula".

So, in short, to distinguish yourself in the stock market, you need to be good at picking companies (this is the very hard part) AND lucky. My brother (against my advice) started putting thousands of dollars into companies like KERX that were trading very cheaply. He got lucky and quadrupled his investment of $20k. I can guarantee you that if he does the same thing 10 more times, he will get destroyed, and bad.

Time wins out. It always wins out. You can only get lucky for so long before you have to pick correctly on your knowledge AND have a large pile of money to back up your mistakes (which you will make). For example, my former employer (a $10bil asset manager) dropped tens of millions of client dollars into Enron throughout the year they went from ~$90/share to ~$1/share. Despite their intense research, they still didn't see the fraud coming because there was no real way to know. So they gambled and "averaged down" the cost basis for their Enron position and lost nearly all the money they put in. They did the same thing with Washington Mutual on the way down recently.

If I were you, I'd not rely on me for figuring out which books to read. Mine have been mostly editioned texts through college and the CFA texts (which are awesome, but expensive). Search around for finance forums to see what people recommend for the modern novice investor.

I can tell you is: never trust what you hear on CNBC (or anybody who speaks on it) and never trust the financial advice/opinions you read on Hacker News (including mine). The people here are mostly programmers who often have silly, oversimplified positions on economic matters, just like most other people in the world. So go ask around...you'll find some good suggestions somewhere.