The Warren Buffett Book Market: 428 Titles and Counting
Warren Buffett has more books with his name in the title than any other investor. We counted all 428 of them in 14 library catalogs, so you can pick the few worth your time:
What are the key findings?
TL;DR: Five numbers that sum up the Buffett book market in 2026.
428
titles on Open Library carry Warren Buffett’s name. The next investor, George Soros, has 57.
196
different books remain after we take out junk, summaries and duplicates.
30 of 40
new Buffett books in the peak year 2015 came from self-publishers (estimate).
5 of 196
books give you mainly Buffett’s own words, edited by others, such as The Essays. His letters are free online.
58 of 80
authors with a known home country are American. For 101 more authors the country is unknown.
Sources: Open Library (October 27, 2026), Wikidata (October 28, 2026). Method: notes 1 to 4
How does Buffett compare with other investors?
TL;DR: Buffett has 428 titles. The next investor has 57.
We searched Open Library for books with each person’s name in the title. Warren Buffett leads all investors by far. Of all names we checked, only Steve Jobs has more, with 538 titles. Elon Musk has 338.
Buffett is in a league of his own among investors
Titles on Open Library with the name in the title. Grey bars: two non-investors for scale.
Show the numbers
| Person | Known as | Titles with the name |
|---|---|---|
| Steve Jobs | Comparison | 538 |
| Warren Buffett | Investor | 428 |
| Elon Musk | Comparison | 338 |
| George Soros | Investor | 57 |
| Dave Ramsey | Personal finance | 56 |
| Benjamin Graham | Investor | 53 |
| Ray Dalio | Investor | 47 |
| Charlie Munger | Investor | 44 |
| Robert Kiyosaki | Personal finance | 39 |
| Peter Lynch | Investor | 15 |
| John Bogle | Investor | 9 |
Source: Open Library search, retrieved October 27, 2026. Raw counts, not cleaned. Method: note 1
Charlie Munger has 44 titles, about a tenth of Buffett’s. Poor Charlie’s Almanack, the main collection of his talks, names him as Charles T. Munger, so this count leaves it out.
When were the Buffett books written?
TL;DR: Books came in waves. The biggest year was 2015, with 40 new titles.
The first wave came with the financial crisis and The Snowball, Buffett’s big biography: 14 new books in 2008 and 18 in 2009. Almost all of them came from real publishers. The peak in 2015 looks different. 30 of the 40 new books that year carry self-publishing ISBNs.
Two kinds of waves: real publishers in 2008, self-publishers in 2015
New entries per year, by first year of publication. Dark: publisher. Light: self-published (estimate from the ISBN). On a phone, swipe left for earlier years.
The Snowball and the financial crisis: 14 and 18 new books. None of the 32 was self-published. This is the clearest wave that follows the news.
The record year, with 40 entries. 30 came from self-publishers, many of them short e-books simply titled “Warren Buffett”.
The retail investing boom after the Covid crash: 28 entries, 15 from publishers and 13 self-published.
Show every year
| Year | New entries | Publisher | Self-published (estimate) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1987 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 1988 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 1992 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 1994 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 1995 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 1996 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 1997 | 6 | 6 | 0 |
| 1998 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
| 1999 | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| 2000 | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| 2001 | 5 | 4 | 1 |
| 2002 | 11 | 11 | 0 |
| 2003 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| 2004 | 11 | 11 | 0 |
| 2005 | 9 | 9 | 0 |
| 2006 | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| 2007 | 7 | 7 | 0 |
| 2008 | 14 | 14 | 0 |
| 2009 | 18 | 18 | 0 |
| 2010 | 14 | 14 | 0 |
| 2011 | 14 | 12 | 2 |
| 2012 | 19 | 17 | 2 |
| 2013 | 19 | 15 | 4 |
| 2014 | 11 | 8 | 3 |
| 2015 | 40 | 10 | 30 |
| 2016 | 17 | 8 | 9 |
| 2017 | 14 | 6 | 8 |
| 2018 | 26 | 7 | 19 |
| 2019 | 15 | 10 | 5 |
| 2020 | 8 | 3 | 5 |
| 2021 | 28 | 15 | 13 |
| 2022 | 7 | 1 | 6 |
| 2023 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| 2024 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 2025 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2026 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
Source: Open Library, 354 cleaned entries with a year, retrieved October 27, 2026. 17 entries have no year. Method: notes 2 and 3
Half of all Buffett books came out after 2013
All Buffett books on Open Library, added up year by year. Dark: publisher. Light: self-published (estimate).
Source: Open Library, 354 cleaned entries with a year, retrieved October 27, 2026. Same data as the chart above. Method: notes 2 and 3
Added up, the picture is clear. It took until 2013 to reach the first half of all Buffett books. The second half came in just 13 years, and more than half of it (100 of 174) from self-publishers.
The last years look small: 3 new books in 2023, 2 in 2024 and 1 in 2025. Library catalogs add new books with a delay, so these numbers will likely grow.
How much of the market is self-published?
TL;DR: Since 2014, 57% of all new Buffett titles are self-published. Before 2010, almost none were.
Self-publishing lets anyone print a book. Many of these titles are short e-books. Before counting, we took out 57 entries: junk such as coloring books, summaries of other books and off-topic titles.
From almost zero to half the market
New entries per decade. Dark: publisher. Light: self-published (estimate). Right: self-published share.
Show the numbers
| Decade | New entries | Self-published (estimate) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1980s | 2 | 0 | 0% |
| 1990s | 22 | 0 | 0% |
| 2000s | 90 | 1 | 1% |
| 2010s | 189 | 82 | 43% |
| 2020s | 51 | 26 | 51% |
Source: Open Library, 354 cleaned entries with a year, retrieved October 27, 2026. 2020s up to October 2026. Since 2014: 100 of 174 entries (57%). Method: note 3
Who writes Buffett books, and in which languages?
TL;DR: Most authors are American. Japan, Korea and China write many Buffett books of their own.
Where do the authors come from?
Of 181 authors on Open Library, 80 have a known home country. 58 of them are American: 18 confirmed in Wikidata, 40 by the country of their publisher. For 101 authors we found no country. Most of them self-publish.
181 authors, one square each
Where the authors come from. Most known authors are American. For more than half, open data shows no country at all.
Show the numbers
| Country | Wikidata | Publisher country or language | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| USA | 18 | 40 | 58 |
| UK | 1 | 5 | 6 |
| Taiwan | 0 | 5 | 5 |
| China | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| Germany | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Denmark | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Spain, France, Switzerland | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| German or Spanish language only | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Unknown | 101 |
Source: Open Library (371 cleaned entries), Wikidata, retrieved October 28, 2026. Publisher country is a weak sign of where an author lives. Method: note 4
Two authors stand out. Mary Buffett, Buffett’s former daughter-in-law, and Robert Hagstrom together account for 137 of 617 editions (22%).
In which languages do Buffett books appear?
Open Library leans toward English. So we searched 13 more library catalogs in Europe and Asia. They add 653 records, 1,081 in total.
Asia writes its own Buffett books. Europe translates them.
Books per language in 13 national and library catalogs. Left: written in the language. Right: translations. “Own” is the share of local originals.
Show the full table
| Language (catalog) | Books found | Written in the language | Translations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese, mainland (Douban) | about 145 | 81 | 62 |
| Japanese (National Diet Library) | 105 | 53 | 48 |
| Korean (National Library of Korea) | 96 | 44 | 50 |
| Chinese, Taiwan and Hong Kong (WorldCat) | about 76 | 30 | 38 |
| German (German National Library) | about 75 | not counted | not counted |
| Spanish (BNE) | 20 | 2 | 16 |
| French (BnF) | 14 | 2 | 12 |
| Polish (Biblioteka Narodowa) | 13 | 2 | 11 |
| Italian (OPAC SBN) | 16 | 1 | 10 |
| Russian (Russian State Library) | 16 | 1 | 14 |
| Portuguese, Brazil (WorldCat) | 13 | 1 | 12 |
| Portuguese, Portugal (BNP) | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| Dutch (KB) | 5 | 2 | 3 |
| Turkish (WorldCat) | 3 | 0 | 3 |
Sources: 13 library catalogs, retrieved October 28 and 29, 2026. Unclear books count in neither column. German books are split below. All numbers are lower bounds. Method: note 5
Asia writes its own Buffett books. About half of the Japanese and Korean books are local originals. Europe, Russia and Brazil mostly translate the same classics: Hagstrom’s The Warren Buffett Way, The Essays of Warren Buffett, Mary Buffett’s books and The Snowball. The Warren Buffett Way shows up in at least 12 languages in our data. Singapore adds 3 local books.
How did Buffett reach German readers?
The German National Library lists about 80 Buffett books in German. About 58 are translations and about 22 are German originals. Germany is between Asia and the rest of Europe: more own books than France or Spain, far fewer than Japan or Korea.
first German Buffett book: Hagstrom’s The Warren Buffett Way, three years after the US original.
first German original about Buffett. Before that, German readers only got translations.
Börsenmedien and FinanzBuch Verlag publish more than half of all German Buffett books.
German publishers have become faster. The classics took three to four years to arrive. The Snowball came out in German in the same year as in the US.
From four years to zero
Years between the US original and the first German edition.
| Book | US | German | Years later |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Warren Buffett Way | 1994 | 1997 | 3 |
| Of Permanent Value | 1994 | 1998 | 4 |
| Buffettology | 1997 | 1998 | 1 |
| Warren Buffett Speaks | 1997 | 1998 | 1 |
| The Essays of Warren Buffett | 1997 | 2001 | 4 |
| The Tao of Warren Buffett | 2006 | 2008 | 2 |
| The Snowball | 2008 | 2008 | 0 |
Source: German National Library (DNB), title search “Buffett”, 140 German-language records, retrieved October 31, 2026. About 80 distinct books after grouping new editions and e-books and removing off-topic titles. Split into translations and originals partly by hand. Estimates, lower bounds.
How can you tell a good Buffett book from a weak one?
TL;DR: Start with Buffett’s own words. Then pick books that stayed in print for years.
What should you check before you buy?
With hundreds of titles, the cover alone tells you little. These five checks come from the data on this page.
Check 1
Start with the source
Buffett’s shareholder letters are free at berkshirehathaway.com. The Essays of Warren Buffett sort them by topic.
Check 2
Count the editions
Books that readers keep buying get new editions and translations. On Open Library, The Warren Buffett Way has 42 editions, The Essays 27 and The Snowball 19.
Check 3
Check the publisher
“Independently published” or an ISBN that starts with 979-8 means the author published the book alone. Read a sample and reviews before you buy.
Check 4
Watch for summaries and copies
Some titles summarize another author’s book. Others are coloring books or reuse a famous title. We took out 16 such entries.
Check 5
Check how close the author got
Alice Schroeder wrote The Snowball with Buffett’s help. Several authors explain their Berkshire books in interviews with us.
The books readers keep buying
Editions and translations on Open Library. Only 9 of 196 Buffett books reach 10 or more. More than half never get a second edition.
Source: Open Library, edition counts per book (translations and new editions grouped), retrieved October 27, 2026. Lower bounds. Method: note 2
Which books shape Buffett readers without his name on the cover?
Our count only includes books with Buffett in the title. But some of the most-read books in the Buffett world don’t carry his name. Some are books by his teachers, some are his favorite books, and some tell his story in a chapter or two. The most-read of them, The Intelligent Investor, has almost three times as many ratings as The Snowball.
The most-read Buffett book doesn’t have his name on it
Ratings on Goodreads for books where Buffett plays a big role. Grey bar: The Snowball for comparison.
Show the numbers, Buffett’s role and Amazon ratings
| Book | Author | First published | Buffett’s role | Goodreads ratings | Amazon.com ratings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Intelligent Investor* | Benjamin Graham | 1949 | Buffett’s teacher. Buffett calls it the best book on investing and wrote the preface | 158,857 | 52,403 |
| Personal History* | Katharine Graham | 1997 | Memoir of the Washington Post owner. Buffett was her adviser and friend | 25,231 | 2,352 |
| Business Adventures* | John Brooks | 1969 | Buffett’s favorite business book. He lent it to Bill Gates | 25,117 | 5,577 |
| Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits* | Philip Fisher | 1958 | Fisher was Buffett’s second big influence after Graham | 16,948 | 2,964 |
| The Outsiders* | William Thorndike | 2012 | Eight CEOs who allocate capital like owners. Buffett gets his own chapter | 14,558 | 4,273 |
| Security Analysis* | Benjamin Graham, David Dodd | 1934 | The textbook from Buffett’s Columbia class. Buffett wrote the foreword to the 6th edition | 9,950 | 1,575 |
| The Dhandho Investor* | Mohnish Pabrai | 2007 | Buffett’s method, explained for private investors | 9,819 | 4,797 |
| Richer, Wiser, Happier* | William Green | 2021 | Interviews with great investors. Buffett is the reference point throughout | 8,139 | 4,856 |
| The Education of a Value Investor* | Guy Spier | 2014 | The author’s charity lunch with Buffett changed his career | 6,487 | 2,657 |
| The Joys of Compounding* | Gautam Baid | 2019 | Lessons on learning and investing, built on Buffett and Munger | 1,893 | 683 |
| Money Masters of Our Time* | John Train | 1980 | Profiles of great investors, with a chapter on Buffett | 335 | 172 |
| The Great Minds of Investing* | William Green | 2015 | Portraits of great investors, with photos by Michael O’Brien | 45 | 45 |
| Supermoney* | “Adam Smith” (George Goodman) | 1972 | The first book that introduced Buffett to a wide audience | – | 182 |
Sources: Goodreads and Amazon.com, retrieved October 31 and November 1, 2026. Our selection, not a complete list. Method: note 6
Supermoney deserves a special mention. In 1972 the author “Adam Smith” described an unknown fund manager from Omaha. That was 15 years before the first book with Buffett in the title.
The Berkshire and Buffett books page lists the books we recommend. Prefer to start for free? Our free Berkshire Hathaway resources begin with Buffett’s own letters.
Notes and sources
TL;DR: How we counted the books on this page.
1. Titles with the name (back to the chart)
Open Library search for each name in the book title, retrieved October 27, 2026 (openlibrary.org). Counts works, not editions. Books the person wrote count too when the name is in the title. Raw counts, not cleaned: Buffett’s 428 include the 57 entries we remove in note 2. The catalog is mostly English.
2. Cleanup (back to the key findings)
Of 428 Buffett entries we took out 57: 11 junk or knock-off entries, 5 summaries of other books and 41 off-topic entries or entries with the name only in another edition’s title. 371 entries remain. Translations and new editions of the same book form one group: 196 distinct books. Grouping is partly manual. “Own words” means books that mainly reprint Buffett’s letters, talks or interviews: The Essays of Warren Buffett, Warren Buffett on Business, A Few Lessons for Investors and Managers, Warren Buffett Talks to MBA Students and his interview with the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Quote collections and collections of letters without his name in the title are not counted.
3. Years and self-publishing (back to the chart)
Year = first publication year of each entry on Open Library. 17 entries have no year. Self-publishing = ISBN prefix 979-8 or typical CreateSpace and “Independently published” ranges. This is an estimate. Recent years are likely incomplete because catalogs add books with a delay.
4. Author countries (back to the chart)
181 authors after merging name variants and removing publishers, narrators and translators. Country from Wikidata (place of residence, else citizenship) for 20 authors, from publisher country or language for 60, unknown for 101. Retrieved October 28, 2026. Publisher country is a weak sign of where an author lives.
5. Other library catalogs (back to the table)
German National Library, BnF (France), BNE (Spain), OPAC SBN (Italy), Biblioteka Narodowa (Poland), KB (Netherlands), National Diet Library (Japan), National Library of Korea, Russian State Library and Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, retrieved October 28, 2026. Douban, WorldCat and National Library Board Singapore, retrieved October 29, 2026. 1,081 records in total. Douban: 210 of 582 results read. Italy: 22 of 33 records. WorldCat covers Turkey and Brazil poorly. National libraries collect mostly print books, so e-books and self-published titles are often missing. All numbers are lower bounds.
6. Books without his name (back to the chart)
Our own selection of books where Buffett plays a big role: as a teacher’s book, a favorite book, a chapter or the method behind the book. Books with Buffett in the title or subtitle are left out, as they are in the main count. Goodreads ratings count all editions of a book, so we use them as the main number. Amazon.com counts ratings for each edition, so classics with many editions look smaller there. The Goodreads number for Security Analysis is for the 1951 edition, the Amazon number for the 6th edition. Goodreads has no number for Supermoney. Ratings show how many people read a book, not how many copies were sold. Retrieved October 31 and November 1, 2026.
in five guides
