The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Investors and Managers, Revised Edition
by L. A. Cunningham
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List Price: ££11.50
Our Price: ££15.49
Your Save: £ ( % )
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Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 332
EAN: 9780470820780
ISBN: 0470820780
Label: John Wiley & Sons
Number Of Pages: 240
Publication Date: 2002-04-09
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Studio: John Wiley & Sons
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good content, annoying editing
Comment: Warren Buffett's insights are invaluable in any context, so this is no exception, hence the high rating. Here are essentially what seems to be some pretty old letters (1980s?) to the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway essentially cut and pasted into a book. Useful no doubt, plentiful Buffett words of wisdom: I particularly like the stories and sayings he uses to explain a point in simple 'relatable' terms for the reader.
However, there is another reviewer who commented that the book's editing is really rubbish. I agree. The arrangement seems a bit arbitrary and I'm not sure exactly what the author is taking credit for, since he doesn't seem to have contributed anything to the content (except the intro). Like with Benjamin Graham's 'The Intelligent Investor' (recommended btw), the essays could have been doing with some commentary and evaluation from the author to give some cohesion and continuity to the 'cutting and pasting'.
BUT, if you can be patient and creative with the content there is no reason why you can't get some useful insights from this book. I'm heading back to the original now with 'Security Analysis' by Benjamin Graham (Buffett's inspiration), reading both of their philosophies will give a good grounding in value investing, in my (albiet novice) opinion.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The only authentic Buffett
Comment: Too many books contain the word Buffett in their title but only this book comes from the annual letters to shareholders. Truly authentic Buffett in his own words is much better just because he dosen't need any interpretation.
Domenico De Salvo
Customer Rating:
Summary: Prominent name, bad book
Comment: This book tells about company strategy of Berkshire Hathaway and the history of it. Very boring, nothing interesting to learn and badly written. Complicated and confusing, skipping from one story to another and back again to first story.
Waste of money.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wisdom from the great investor
Comment: I admire Warren Buffett and love reading what he writes. Not only is he probably the wisest investor ever but he is also very articulate and witty.
Some of the chapters, e.g. "An Owner-Based Approach to Corporate Charity", "Berkshire's Recapitalization", "Distribution of the Corporate Tax Burden", etc were not of any interest to me. Excluding such chapters, this slim volume would be even slimmer. However, the book is worth it just for the remainder.
His basic investment goal is simple: He tries to buy businesses that he can understand that have favourable, long-term prospects and are operated by honest and competent people at an attractive price. This is easier said than done, but there is some guidance in his essays as to how he does this.
Some examples of his way with words, taken at random from the first few pages:
"At too many companies, the boss shoots the arrow of managerial performance and then hastily paints the bullseye around the spot where it lands."
"A horse that can count to ten is a remarkable horse - not a remarkable mathematician."
"Should you find yourself in a chronically-leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks."
Customer Rating:
Summary: Essence of sage
Comment: Cunningham has done us a great favour. Buffett doesn't talk to the press and most books claiming to be Buffett bibles are re-hashes and interpretations, so this book of essays is the closest you will get to hearing it straight from the horse's mouth. This is Buffett's wisdom distilled from annual letters to shareholders in his company, which Cunningham has strung together seamlessly. Although that means alot of passages refer to Buffett's own firm and its shareholdings, the lessons for investors are universal, and the "value investing" philosophy shines through. If that was all there was to recommend the book it would still be a must-have for anyone interested in making money. But it is also a great read.
Buffett comes across as the most genial, honest and no-nonsense guy in the financial world. He also has a wonderfully impish sense of humour and had me chuckling out loud (and then trying in vain to explain the joke to my girlfriend...) The only bits where he slightly lost me was when comparing investing with baseball, but I think I got the gist of it. Anyway, Buffett writes as clearly as he thinks and is as modest and self-deprecating as he is authoritative. He treats his readers like the investors they are, so this is not an "entry level" book and it might be a struggle if you don't know the difference between a fixed asset and a preference share, but otherwise it is a book that you won't regret buying.
I can't recommend it highly enough.
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Editorial Reviews: |
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good content, annoying editing
Comment: Warren Buffett's insights are invaluable in any context, so this is no exception, hence the high rating. Here are essentially what seems to be some pretty old letters (1980s?) to the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway essentially cut and pasted into a book. Useful no doubt, plentiful Buffett words of wisdom: I particularly like the stories and sayings he uses to explain a point in simple 'relatable' terms for the reader.
However, there is another reviewer who commented that the book's editing is really rubbish. I agree. The arrangement seems a bit arbitrary and I'm not sure exactly what the author is taking credit for, since he doesn't seem to have contributed anything to the content (except the intro). Like with Benjamin Graham's 'The Intelligent Investor' (recommended btw), the essays could have been doing with some commentary and evaluation from the author to give some cohesion and continuity to the 'cutting and pasting'.
BUT, if you can be patient and creative with the content there is no reason why you can't get some useful insights from this book. I'm heading back to the original now with 'Security Analysis' by Benjamin Graham (Buffett's inspiration), reading both of their philosophies will give a good grounding in value investing, in my (albiet novice) opinion.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The only authentic Buffett
Comment: Too many books contain the word Buffett in their title but only this book comes from the annual letters to shareholders. Truly authentic Buffett in his own words is much better just because he dosen't need any interpretation.
Domenico De Salvo
Customer Rating:
Summary: Prominent name, bad book
Comment: This book tells about company strategy of Berkshire Hathaway and the history of it. Very boring, nothing interesting to learn and badly written. Complicated and confusing, skipping from one story to another and back again to first story.
Waste of money.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wisdom from the great investor
Comment: I admire Warren Buffett and love reading what he writes. Not only is he probably the wisest investor ever but he is also very articulate and witty.
Some of the chapters, e.g. "An Owner-Based Approach to Corporate Charity", "Berkshire's Recapitalization", "Distribution of the Corporate Tax Burden", etc were not of any interest to me. Excluding such chapters, this slim volume would be even slimmer. However, the book is worth it just for the remainder.
His basic investment goal is simple: He tries to buy businesses that he can understand that have favourable, long-term prospects and are operated by honest and competent people at an attractive price. This is easier said than done, but there is some guidance in his essays as to how he does this.
Some examples of his way with words, taken at random from the first few pages:
"At too many companies, the boss shoots the arrow of managerial performance and then hastily paints the bullseye around the spot where it lands."
"A horse that can count to ten is a remarkable horse - not a remarkable mathematician."
"Should you find yourself in a chronically-leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks."
Customer Rating:
Summary: Essence of sage
Comment: Cunningham has done us a great favour. Buffett doesn't talk to the press and most books claiming to be Buffett bibles are re-hashes and interpretations, so this book of essays is the closest you will get to hearing it straight from the horse's mouth. This is Buffett's wisdom distilled from annual letters to shareholders in his company, which Cunningham has strung together seamlessly. Although that means alot of passages refer to Buffett's own firm and its shareholdings, the lessons for investors are universal, and the "value investing" philosophy shines through. If that was all there was to recommend the book it would still be a must-have for anyone interested in making money. But it is also a great read.
Buffett comes across as the most genial, honest and no-nonsense guy in the financial world. He also has a wonderfully impish sense of humour and had me chuckling out loud (and then trying in vain to explain the joke to my girlfriend...) The only bits where he slightly lost me was when comparing investing with baseball, but I think I got the gist of it. Anyway, Buffett writes as clearly as he thinks and is as modest and self-deprecating as he is authoritative. He treats his readers like the investors they are, so this is not an "entry level" book and it might be a struggle if you don't know the difference between a fixed asset and a preference share, but otherwise it is a book that you won't regret buying.
I can't recommend it highly enough.
Buffett, the Bard of Omaha, is a genuine American folk hero, if folk heroes are allowed to build fortunes worth upward of $15 billion. He's great at homespun metaphor, but behind those catchy phrases is a reservoir of financial acumen that's generally considered the best of his generation. For example, in an essay on CEO stock options, he writes, "Negotiating with one's self seldom produces a barroom brawl." This is his way of saying that an executive who can give himself compensation totally disproportionate to his performance surely will. There are uncountable gems of financial wisdom to be harvested from these essays, taken from the annual reports he writes for Berkshire Hathaway, his holding company. Just to pick one more, here's a now-famous line about those he competes with when making stock-market investments: "What could be more advantageous in an intellectual contest--whether it be chess, bridge, or stock selection--than to have opponents who have been taught that thinking is a waste of energy?" While Buffett has a policy of seldom commenting on stocks he owns--he feels public pronouncements will only lead to the public's expectation of more public pronouncements, and he likes to keep his cards close to his vest--he loves to discuss the principles behind his investments. These come primarily from Ben Graham, under whom Buffett studied at Columbia University and for whom he worked in the 1950s. First among them is the idea that price is what you pay and value is what you get--and if you're a smart investor, the first will always be less than the second. In that sense, the value of the lessons learned from Buffett's Essays could be far greater than the book's price. --Lou Schuler
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