Last week I started a Summer Book Crusade where I will read one book a week. In a continuation of this Crusade I decided to read The Essential Buffet by Robert G. Hagstorm. It was really hard finding the time to read this book, and to be perfectly honest, I'm not quite done yet but couldn't wait. When can a boy find the time to read with the Magic and Red Wings in the finals?

The Essential Buffet

I kind of feel ashamed that I'm writing a blog post on a financial book. I have absolutely no credibility when it comes to money except that I manage to make $1 into $2 every now and again. As far as I'm concerned, money is a game and I love winning but I lose more than anything. Good thing is you can only get better by knowing and experiencing first hand so it can't phase me tremendously.

I'm not going to talk about what the book entails because I'm in fear of losing something important in translation. But, overall, it was a concrete reinforcement of what I always had an idea of when it came to stocks: It's not about just buying and crossing fingers, but a detailed process of analysis of a business model and figuring out if it's fundamental value is really worth investing in.

I play this game on the iPhone called iTrade, it's a virtual stock market where they give you $100,000 and you can trade NYSE/NASDAQ stocks, and if you really screw up they reset the game every month. Very entertaining, but through playing that it became quickly apparent on a larger scale that buying shares of companies because you think it's a good company isn't the way to do it. I haven't seen tangible results from the game after a week (understandably so) over past behavior but some stocks are beginning to look less appealing and others more so. While the app is unrelated to the book review, I thought I'd plug my favorite iPhone game.

Anyway, of the few books I've read when it comes to money, this is certainly my favorite so far. It's extremely easy to read and retain the message inside. Better yet, it's real short and has medium-sized text so page flipping is a common occurance. If you're like me, you read slow and get discouraged from reading books when it takes a few years to get to the next page flip: no problem here.

Conclusion

Based on the fact that I don't want to get remotely detailed with financial book reviews, I'm going to probably stick to nerd books for the remainder of the Summer Book Crusade. I was unable to give a reasonable review even if I wanted to just because of my novice nature in the subject. However, I can't praise it enough, The Essential Buffet was real interesting, an easy read, and very informative. I'd recommend it through and through.

Next Book

Uh, I just put myself on the spot -- I haven't given this any thought: I think I'm going to read a book on iPhone development. Having a few unread books from this genre, I'll have to take a look when I get into work in... 5 hours (if I can remember I'll also take a picture of my in-office library). I really wanted to read the book on Collective Intelligence but I forgot to buy it. Soon.