Nine Book Recommendations From Warren Buffett

Book Recommendations by Warren Buffett: Security Analysis

Security Analysis: The Classic 1934 Edition by Benjamin Graham

Rare is the opportunity to see, much less own, an original. But this unusual, carefully crafted reproduction of Benjamin Graham and David Dodd’s immortal Security Analysis gives you that chance–to read and treasure a true classic–the book that gave birth to value investing.

Continuously in print through five editions, for more than 60 years, and through nearly a million copies, the primer for many of America’s most illustrious investors–and the wellspring of Graham and Dodd’s Wall Street Immortality–Security Analysis is indisputably the most influential book on investing ever written. Still the investors’ bible, it’s as frequently consulted today as it was when it first appeared in 1934.

Book Recommendations by Warren Buffett: Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits

Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings by Philip A. Fisher

Widely respected and admired, Philip Fisher is among the most influential investors of all time. His investment philosophies, introduced almost forty years ago, are not only studied and applied by today’s financiers and investors, but are also regarded by many as gospel. This book is invaluable reading and has been since it was first published in 1958. The updated paperback retains the investment wisdom of the original edition and includes the perspectives of the author’s son Ken Fisher, an investment guru in his own right in an expanded preface and introduction

“I sought out Phil Fisher after reading his Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings…A thorough understanding of the business, obtained by using Phil’s techniques…enables one to make intelligent investment commitments.” – Warren Buffet

Book Recommendations by Warren Buffett: Stress Test

Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises by Timothy F. Geithner

Stress Test is the story of Tim Geithner’s education in financial crises.

As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and then as President Barack Obama’s secretary of the Treasury, Timothy F. Geithner helped the United States navigate the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, from boom to bust to rescue to recovery. In a candid, riveting, and historically illuminating memoir, he takes readers behind the scenes of the crisis, explaining the hard choices and politically unpalatable decisions he made to repair a broken financial system and prevent the collapse of the Main Street economy. This is the inside story of how a small group of policy makers—in a thick fog of uncertainty, with unimaginably high stakes—helped avoid a second depression but lost the American people doing it. Stress Test is also a valuable guide to how governments can better manage financial crises, because this one won’t be the last.

Book Recommendations by Warren Buffett: The Essays of Warren Buffett

The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America, Third Edition by Warren Buffett

Buffett repeatedly declares The Essays “Recommended Reading”

* Cunningham followed up with Berkshire Beyond Buffett: The Enduring Value of Values (an amazon “hot new title”) 

• By arranging Warren Buffett’s lengthy writings thematically, Cunningham’s classic clarifies all the principles of Buffett’s philosophy of business and investing.
• Cunningham’s new book, Berkshire Beyond Buffett: The Enduring Value of Values, takes deep dives inside Berkshire’s businesses to glimpse the future by a study of the past.

Book Recommendations by Warren Buffett: Jack: Straight From The Gut

Jack: Straight from the Gut by Jack Welch

They called him Neutron Jack. They called him the world’s toughest boss. And then Fortune called him “The Manager of the Century.” In his twenty-year career at the helm of General Electric, Jack Welch defied conventional wisdom and turned an aging behemoth of a corporation into a lean, mean engine of growth and corporate innovation. In this remarkable autobiography-a classic business book and runaway New York Times bestseller now updated with a new afterword by the author-Jack Welch takes us on the rough-and-tumble ride that has been his remarkable life. From his working-class childhood to his early days in G.E. Plastics to his life at the top of the world’s most successful company, Welch tells his intensely personal story with his well-known fire and candor. And although it chronicles billion-dollar deals and high-stakes corporate standoffs, Jack is ultimately a story about people-from a man who based his career on demanding only the best from others and from himself.

Book Recommendations by Warren Buffett: The Outsiders

The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William N. Thorndike

#1 on Warren Buffett’s Recommended Reading List, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Letter, 2012

In this refreshing, counterintuitive book, author Will Thorndike brings to bear the analytical wisdom of a successful career in investing, closely evaluating the performance of companies and their leaders. You will meet eight individualistic CEOs whose firms’ average returns outperformed the S&P 500 by a factor of twenty—in other words, an investment of $10,000 with each of these CEOs, on average, would have been worth over $1.5 million twenty-five years later. You may not know all their names, but you will recognize their companies: General Cinema, Ralston Purina, The Washington Post Company, Berkshire Hathaway, General Dynamics, Capital Cities Broadcasting, TCI, and Teledyne. In The Outsiders, you’ll learn the traits and methods—striking for their consistency and relentless rationality—that helped these unique leaders achieve such exceptional performance.

Book Recommendations by Warren Buffett: The Clash of the Cultures

The Clash of the Cultures: Investment vs. Speculation by John C. Bogle

Over the course of his sixty-year career in the mutual fund industry, Vanguard Group founder John C. Bogle has witnessed a massive shift in the culture of the financial sector. The prudent, value-adding culture of long-term investment has been crowded out by an aggressive, value-destroying culture of short-term speculation. Mr. Bogle has not been merely an eye-witness to these changes, but one of the financial sector’s most active participants. In The Clash of the Cultures, he urges a return to the common sense principles of long-term investing.

Book Recommendations by Warren Buffett: Business Adventures

Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street by John Brooks

What do the $350 million Ford Motor Company disaster known as the Edsel, the fast and incredible rise of Xerox, and the unbelievable scandals at General Electric and Texas Gulf Sulphur have in common? Each is an example of how an iconic company was defined by a particular moment of fame or notoriety; these notable and fascinating accounts are as relevant today to understanding the intricacies of corporate life as they were when the events happened.