Among the many booths at Berkshire Hathaway’s 2015 Annual Meeting was one run by a local bookstore. Each year, BRK approves a list of books, many of which have been mentioned in shareholder letters or other speeches by Warren Buffett and/or Charlie Munger. I always see media articles referring to this list (ex. 11 Picks from Warren Buffett’s Bookshelf), but here is the entire official list from The Bookworm.
“I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life.” – Warren Buffett
Besides the well-known Buffett biographies and classic investing books, it still manages to include several investing books I’d never heard of before, as well as some intriguing non-investing books by Buffett’s siblings and children. There is even a comic book and a separate section for kids. Here’s the Amazon-linkified list, sorted by category in alphabetical order.
About Warren Buffett
- Berkshire Beyond Buffett: The Enduring Value of Values by Lawrence Cunningham
- Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders collected by Max Olson
- Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein
- Buffett’s Bites: The Essential Investor’s Guide to Warren Buffett’s Shareholder Letters by L.J. Rittenhouse
- The Essays of Warren Buffett, Lessons for Corporate America collected by Lawrence Cunningham
- A Few Lessons for Investors and Managers from Warren E. Buffett by Peter Bevelin
- Of Permanent Value: The Story of Warren Buffett, 2014 Endless Extra Edition by Andrew Kilpatrick
- The Oracle & Omaha: How Warren Buffett and His Hometown Shaped Each Other by Steve Jordan
- The Real Warren Buffett: Managing Capital, Leading People by James O’Loughlin
- Tap Dancing to Work: Warren Buffett on Practically Everything by Carol Loomis
- Warren Buffett: An Illustrated Biography of the World’s Most Successful Investor by Ayano Morio
- Warren Buffett on Business: Principles from the Sage of Omaha by Richard Connors
- Warren Buffett Speaks: Wit and Wisdom from the World’s Greatest Investor, Second Edition, by Janet Lowe
- The Warren Buffett Way, Third Edition, by Robert G. Hagstrom
About Charlie Munger
- Damn Right!: Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger by Janet Lowe
- Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger, Third Edition edited by Peter Kaufman
On Investing
- Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street by John Brooks
- Clash of the Cultures: Investment vs. Speculation by John Bogle
- The Go-Go Years: The Drama and Crashing Finale of Wall Street’s Bullish 60s by John Brooks
- The Great Crash: 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith
- The Intelligent Investor: The Classic Text on Value Investing by Benjamin Graham
- The Intelligent Investor (Revised Edition) by Benjamin Graham, revised by Jason Zweig
- Investing Between the Lines: How to Make Smarter Decisions by Decoding CEO Communications by Laura Rittenhouse
- The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns by John Bogle
- Once in Golconda: A True Drama of Wall Street 1920-1938 by John Brooks
- The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William Thorndike
- Strategic Value Investing: Practical Techniques of Leading Value Investors by Stephen Horan, Robert Johnson and Thomas Robinson
- The Ten Commandments for Business Failure by Donald R. Keough
- Where Are the Customers’ Yachts? Or a Good Hard Look at Wall Street by Fred Schwed, Jr.
General Interest
- Dream Big by Cris Correa
- Foods You Will Enjoy: The Story of Buffett`s Store by Bill Buffett
- Forty Chances: Finding Hope in a Hungry World by Howard G. Buffett
- Giving It All Away: The Doris Buffett Story by Michael Zitz
- Life Is What You Make It: Find Your Own Path to Fulfillment by Peter Buffett
- Life Lessons in Business: Wisdom from Warren E. Buffett & L.A. “Davy” Davidson by Gwyn Davidson Larsen
- Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger by Peter Bevelin
- The Women of Berkshire Hathaway: Lessons from Warren Buffett’s Female CEOs and Directors by Karen Linder
Family and Children’s Interests
- My First Berkshire ABC by Nancy Rips
- The Oracle’s Fables: Life Lessons for Children Inspired by the Oracle of Omaha by John Prescott, illustrated by Tom Kerr
- The Secret Millionaires Club: Warren Buffett’s 26 Secrets to Success in the Business of Life by Andy & Amy Heyward
- The Secret Millionaires Club DVD, Volume 1 and Volume 2
- The Secret Millionaires Club Business in a Box
The annual meeting is always a hoot. It’s like a Warren/Charlie stand up comedy routine each year. Hope you liked my hometown of Omaha!
I actually didn’t go, but I read all the live blog Q&A coverage. I would like to go next year if I can make it happen. Do you go each year?
I will be honest with you Jonathan – I have thought of going to the meeting, but I don’t know if the extra cost, effort and time would make going worth it. After all, you have to pay for 3 nights of hotels, plus airfare, plus cabs, etc.. You also have a lot of time waiting in line, trying to get a seat, sitting in crowds etc..
At the same time, the type of information of what happened during the meeting will already be transcribed online, discussed on major news media, etc. Generally, for me the meat of the content is available without much effort online already. I would say the experience might be interesting for entertainment value. If you meet with other investors and discuss things in person, it might also be worth it. But, why can’t you just meet wherever you are located 😉 Of course, if you can meet Munger or Buffett, and manage to ask a question yourself, that might be cool. But the odds of that happening are low.
I doubt the cost benefit makes it worth spending the time, money and effort to get the same level of information you already would get for free by reading notes.
Oh, it would definitely just be for the finance-geeky fun of it. I usually avoid crowds though so the popularity itself is actually a turn-off. But after reading about the meeting for so many years, you know there is only a finite number of Warren and Charlie shows left…
You raise valid points. I think you might have better luck in avoiding crowds by going to the Daily Journal meeting in LA. Unfortunately, that would be some time in March 2016..
Thanks for sharing this! As a voracious reader I am always looking for the next thing to read. Saw a few here on the list that caught my eye.