Book Recommendations From Billionaire Warren Buffett

A man like Warren Buffett, who would read 600,700 or 1,000 pages a day when he started his investing career, acquired most of his knowledge on investing from the books he read. Even at present, Buffett spends 80% of his time reading.

For someone as successful as he is, one would not expect Warren Buffett to have this much time to spend on reading, but he credits his success to his reading habit. He even suggests that everyone should read 500 pages every day.

If you want to read some good books, you may choose from the ones Warren Buffett recommends.

1. THE INTELLIGENT INVESTOR
Authored by Benjamin Graham

The Intelligent Investor Revised Edition: The Definitive Book On Value Investing (Collins Business Essentials) was first published by Benjamin Graham in 1949. This book has been acknowledged globally as the greatest investment advisor of the twentieth century and has taught and inspired people worldwide. Benjamin Graham’s philosophy of ‘value investing’ which shields the investors from making substantial errors has made The Intelligent Investor Revised Edition: The Definitive Book On Value Investing (Collins Business Essentials) the stock market bible. in addition, Graham helps people to come up with ways to make long term strategies that help them to meet their financial goals.

The revised edition published in 2006 has this classic text annotated to update Graham’s timeless wisdom for today’s market conditions. While preserving the integrity of Graham’s original text, this revised edition includes updated commentary by noted financial journalist Jason Zweig. While over the years, market developments have proven the wisdom of Graham’s strategies, Zweig’s perspective incorporates the realities of today’s market, draws parallels between Graham’s examples and today’s financial headlines and gives readers a more thorough understanding of how to apply Graham’s principles.

Vital and indispensable, this HarperBusiness Essentials edition of The Intelligent Investor is the most important book you will ever read on how to reach your financial goals. The revised edition is available in paperback.

2. THE LITTLE BOOK OF COMMON SENSE INVESTING
Authored by John C. Bogle

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing is the classic guide to getting smart about the market. Legendary mutual fund  pioneer John C. Bogle reveals his key to getting more out of investing: low-cost index funds. Bogle describes the simplest and most effective investment strategy for building wealth over the long term: buy and hold, at very low cost, a mutual fund that tracks a broad stock market Index such as the S&P 500.

While the stock market has tumbled and then soared since the first edition of Little Book of Common Sense was published in April 2007, Bogle’s investment principles have endured and served investors well.  This tenth anniversary edition includes updated data and new information but maintains the same long-term perspective as in its predecessor. 

Bogle has also added two new chapters designed to provide further guidance to investors:  one on asset allocation, the other on retirement investing.

A portfolio focused on index funds is the only investment that effectively guarantees your fair share of stock market returns. This strategy is favored by Warren Buffett, who said this about Bogle: “If a statue is ever erected to honor the person who has done the most for American investors, the hands-down choice should be Jack Bogle. For decades, Jack has urged investors to invest in ultra-low-cost index funds. . . . Today, however, he has the satisfaction of knowing that he helped millions of investors realize far better returns on their savings than they otherwise would have earned. He is a hero to them and to me.”

Bogle shows you how to make index investing work for you and help you achieve your financial goals, and finds support from some of the world’s best financial minds: not only Warren Buffett, but Benjamin Graham, Paul Samuelson, Burton Malkiel, Yale’s David Swensen, Cliff Asness of AQR, and many others.

This new edition of The Little Book of Common Sense Investing offers you the same solid strategy as its predecessor for building your financial future.

  • Build a broadly diversified, low-cost portfolio without the risks of individual stocks, manager selection, or sector rotation.
  • Forget the fads and marketing hype, and focus on what works in the real world.
  • Understand that stock returns are generated by three sources (dividend yield, earnings growth, and change in market valuation) in order to establish rational expectations for stock returns over the coming decade.
  • Recognize that in the long run, business reality  trumps market expectations.
  • Learn how to harness the magic of compounding returns while avoiding the tyranny of compounding costs.

While index investing allows you to sit back and let the market do the work for you, too many investors trade frantically, turning a winner’s game into a loser’s game. The Little Book of Common Sense Investing is a solid guidebook to your financial future.

3. THE WEALTH OF NATIONS
Authored by Adam Smith

First published in 1776, The Wealth of Nations is generally regarded as the foundation of contemporary economic thought. Adam Smith, a Scottish professor of moral philosophy, expounded the then-revolutionary doctrine of economic liberalism. The book’s importance was immediately recognized by Smith’s peers, and later economists have shown an unusual consensus in their admiration for his ideas. 

Combining economics, political theory, history, philosophy, and practical programs, Smith assumes that human self-interest is the basic psychological drive behind economics and that a natural order in the universe makes all the individual, self-interested strivings add up to the social good. His conclusion, that the best program is to leave the economic process alone and that government is useful only as an agent to preserve order and to perform routine functions, is now known as laissez-faire economics or noninterventionism. 

In noting for the first time the significance of the division of labor and by stating the hypothesis that a commodity’s value correlates to its labor input, Smith anticipated the writings of Karl Marx. Like Marx’s Das Capital and Machiavelli’s The Prince, his great bookmarked the dawning of a new historical epoch.