The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life

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Random House Publishing Group, Oct 27, 2009 - Biography & Autobiography - 832 pages
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The most authoritative portrait of one of the most important American investors of our time.”—Los Angeles Times

“Even people who don’t care a whit about business will be intrigued. . . . A side of the Oracle of Omaha that has rarely been seen.”—Time (Five Best Nonfiction Books of the Year)

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post; People; Financial Times; Businessweek; Janet Maslin, The New York Times; Publishers Weekly

Warren Buffett is one of the most respected men in the world. But the legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir or offered a glimpse into his intensely private life. Here, at last, he gives unprecedented access to his work, opinions, struggles, triumphs, follies, and wisdom.

This complete biography of the man known everywhere as “the Oracle of Omaha” was written by highly respected former financial analyst and business writer Alice Schroeder with the cooperation of Buffett himself, who gave her thousands of hours of his own time as well as complete access to his wife, children, friends, and business associates—and his files. The result is the fullest exploration of his philosophy of life we will ever have. Here are the principles and ideas that made Buffett astoundingly wealthy, enriched the lives (and bank accounts) of those who adopted them, and created the most fascinating American success story of our time.
 

Contents

The Less Flattering Version
3
Creatures of Habit
23
Warren Whats Wrong?
30
The Bathtub Steeplechase
41
Armistice Day
49
A Thousand Ways
55
Inky Fingers
62
True Crime Stories
80
How Not to Run a Public Library
356
And Then What?
389
Pharaoh
407
Rose
418
Call the Tow Truck
429
Rubicon
436
White Nights
458
ThumbSucking and
473

Silent Sales
88
The Rules of the Racetrack
97
The Interview
113
Mount Everest
126
Miss Nebraska
136
Stage Fright
146
GrahamNewman
159
The Side to Play
170
The Omaha Club
197
The Locomotive
203
The Windmill War
213
Folly
229
Dry Tinder
242
What a Worsted Is
250
Jet Jack
256
The Scaffold Sways the Future
264
Easy Safe Profitable and Pleasant
271
The Unwinding
279
Candy Harry
295
The Sun
306
Two Drowned Rats
316
Newshound
323
Spaghetti Western
332
The Giant
342
The Angry Gods
505
The Lottery
521
To Hell with the Bear
540
Chickenfeed
554
PART SIX Claim Checks
569
The Genie
571
Semicolon
573
The Last Kay Party
582
By the Rich for the Rich
589
Oracle
601
Buffetted
615
Winter
624
Frozen Coke
629
The Seventh Fire
639
Claim Checks
654
The Crisis
671
The Snowball
702
Notes
709
A Personal Note About Research
787
Photo Credits and Permissions
789
Acknowledgments
791
Index
795
Hidden Splendor
807
Copyright

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About the author (2009)

Alice Schroeder was a noted insurance industry analyst and writer who was a managing director at Morgan Stanley. She first met Warren Buffett when she published research on Berkshire Hathaway; her grasp of the subject and insight so impressed him that he offered her access to his files and to himself. Their friendship and mutual respect make her ideally positioned to write the The Snowball. Ms. Schroeder was born in Texas, and she earned an undergraduate degree and her MBA at the University of Texas at Austin before moving east to work in finance. She is a former CPA and lives in Connecticut with her husband.

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