This handy guide for those running the retirement gauntlet covers the full gamut of pension products, as well as discussing investment approaches. It even gets down to the nitty-gritty, such as how to make a complaint over poor advice.

Continuing with the theme of the guides from our sister publications, this second edition of The Economist’s Guide to Investment Strategy is again written by Peter Stanyer. His impressive CV of roles at major UK and US wealth and fund managers – as well sitting on the investment committees at two large pension funds and being the former investment director of the Railway Pension Fund – make him an authoritative source.

Readers of October’s issue will be aware of just how large and wide-ranging the defined benefit derisking landscape has become. Buy-in deals have taken the spotlight this year, while schemes heart set on full buyout have a number of routes to take.

With contributions from a number of key industry players – from the perennially vocal Edmund Truell to the recently reticent Mark Wood – this collection of essays offers a number of insights into the market, from the perspective of providers, employees and trustees.

For anyone who has had their head in the sand, avoiding the doom and gloom headlines of what has now dubbed ‘the pensions crisis’, this book will act as a step-by-step guide to avoiding the pitfalls.

Written in a thankfully jargon-free and accessible way, this is very much aimed at the layman who may have been scared off by the glut of acronyms our industry has been so active in producing.

“As the financial system imploded in 2007-2009, the people who always say that this is the end of capitalism as we know it said that this is the end of capitalism as we know it.”

According to the annual television campaign, “tax doesn’t have to be taxing”. Unfortunately it often is, and this year’s Budget has hardly made things easier. Do you earn more than £150,000 a year? Are you likely to be stung by anti-forestalling laws?

When the going gets tough, according to Billy Ocean, the tough get going. And that is exactly the advice on offer in this guide to surviving the first global recession of the 21st century.

If you are of the opinion that the world’s bankers, regulators and politicians were predominantly to blame for the credit crunch and the onset of global recession, and if you believe strategies such as quantitative easing and the scapegoating of Fred Goodwin et al means there has been insufficient punishment and humiliation of those responsible, then we may have found the book for you.