BUFFETT: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein

As a biography, this is not too interesting. Buffett was an annoying kid who did little interesting except work hard and make and save up money, and continued to do so through his college years, and that money because the basis for his investing.

His domestic life is somewhat interesting. His wife left him in their forties after the children were pretty much grown, and moved to San Francisco to pursue a singing career and who knows how many affairs (only hinted at in this book).

But they stayed married and evidently in love. So his wife recommended he meet a local young waitress named Astrid who soon moved in with Buffett and takes care of him in every way, with the wife's blessing.

Not the kind of marriage you expected from Warren Buffett, I bet.

Still, his investing career is really why readers will want this book. Without his tremendous investing success, who'd care about his personal life?

And this story of how he began investing and took over Berkshire Hathaway and some of his other investments are worth going over.

Although some of what he does can't be duplicated by us ordinary investing mortals, most of it can be. We can learn a lot from Mr. Buffett -- but I've noticed that few people do.