Books by great investors, in their own words
Start with One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch. The clearest writing about spotting great businesses early. Lynch compounded ~29% a year for 13 years.
The 9 books, in reading order
Tap a title to jump to it below.
| # | Book | Author |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | One Up On Wall Street | Peter Lynch |
| 2 | The Essays of Warren Buffett | Lawrence A. Cunningham (ed.) |
| 3 | The Little Book That Beats the Market | Joel Greenblatt |
| 4 | You Can Be a Stock Market Genius | Joel Greenblatt |
| 5 | Fooling Some of the People All of the Time | David Einhorn |
| 6 | Beating the Street | Peter Lynch |
| 7 | Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders | Warren Buffett (ed. Max Olson) |
| 8 | Common Sense on Mutual Funds | John C. Bogle |
| 9 | The Joys of Compounding | Gautam Baid |
The best way to understand a manager's 13F is to read the manager. Several of the investors whose live holdings you can follow on this site wrote the definitive book on their own method — and reading it turns a list of tickers into a coherent way of thinking.
Buffett's shareholder letters (collected in The Essays and the complete Letters) are the primary source; Lynch teaches you to spot great businesses early; Greenblatt hands you a systematic formula and the special-situations playbook; Einhorn walks you through a real short thesis. Buffett, Greenblatt and Einhorn each have a profile on HoldLens with their latest 13F holdings.
Most of these have strong audiobook editions, and a free Audible trial covers many of them — a low-friction way to get through the shelf on a commute.
Start a free 30-day Audible trialNew Audible members only · cancel anytime · many titles included with membership.
More reading lists
This is one shelf of the full value investor's reading list. The others:
Common questions
Which book by a great investor should I read first?
Start with One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch. The clearest writing about spotting great businesses early. Lynch compounded ~29% a year for 13 years. Then read The Essays of Warren Buffett and The Little Book That Beats the Market.
Which books are on this list, and in what order?
9 books, in the order we'd read them — see the table at the top of this page. The full reading list has 5 more topics.
Does HoldLens earn money from these book links?
Yes. The book links go to Amazon, and as an Amazon Associate HoldLens earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. Books are chosen on merit, never paid placements.
Amazon affiliate links — as an Amazon Associate, HoldLens earns from qualifying purchases and membership trials at no extra cost to you. These are books we genuinely recommend, chosen on merit, never paid placements. Nothing here is investment advice — always do your own research.