Mohnish Pabrai, 2004
Mosaic: Perspectives on Investing
Pabrai's first book, written before anybody was listening, and better for it.
Grammer Buff, out of print, now scarce and sought after.
Lorenzo Ayres / 1 min
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Everybody has read Dhandho. Almost nobody has read this one and it is the better book, because he wrote it before he was famous, so he is still arguing rather than summarizing. It collects his essays and columns from the early 2000s, which means you watch him work out the cloning idea and the asymmetry idea instead of being handed the finished version.
What I keep going back to is how plainly he treats copying. Pabrai does not pretend to be original. He finds somebody who already solved a problem, copies the solution, and says so out loud. That is most of my own thesis about acquisition and augmentation, and the hard part was never the idea, it was being willing to run somebody else's idea without needing it to be mine. It took me a long time to get comfortable with that and I am still not completely comfortable with it.
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Find the deal
- Seth Klarman, 1991Margin of SafetyRisk first, reward second, and the book that made those one idea instead of a trade-off.
- Maurece Schiller, 1955 to 1966The special situations booksFive forgotten books from the fifties, and the ancestor of every strange structure I get excited about.
- Bruce Greenwald and Judd Kahn, 2008globalization: n. the irrational fear that someone in China will take your jobThe Greenwald almost nobody reads. Watch him take a fear everybody repeats and walk it back until it falls apart.
Deals and structure
- Competition DemystifiedBruce Greenwald and Judd Kahn, 2005
- Distress InvestingMartin Whitman and Fernando Diz, 2009
- Merger MastersKate Welling and Mario Gabelli, 2018
- World Commodities and World CurrencyBenjamin Graham, 1944
- Storage and StabilityBenjamin Graham, 1937
- Walker's Manual of Unlisted StocksHarry Eisenberg, editor, the 2000 edition
- The Takeover GameJohn Brooks, 1987
- Bankruptcy Investing: How to Profit from Distressed CompaniesBen Branch and Hugh Ray
- The Crash and Its Aftermath: Securities Markets 1929 to 1933Barrie Wigmore, 1985
- Selling America ShortRichard C. Sauer, 2010
- Outsmarting the Smart MoneyLawrence A. Cunningham, 2002
- The Inefficient Stock Market and The New FinanceRobert A. Haugen
- King IcahnMark Stevens, 1993
- Dear ChairmanJeff Gramm, 2016
- Barbarians at the GateBryan Burrough and John Helyar, 1989
- Buy Then BuildWalker Deibel, 2018
- The Art of M&AAlexandra Reed Lajoux and Stanley Foster Reed, 1989
- Breakthrough AdvertisingEugene Schwartz, 1966
- Scientific AdvertisingClaude Hopkins, 1923
- The Boron LettersGary Halbert, 1984
- Way of the WolfJordan Belfort, 2017
- Ogilvy on AdvertisingDavid Ogilvy, 1983
- The Strategy and Tactics of PricingThomas Nagle and Georg Müller, 1987
- Setting the TableDanny Meyer, 2006
- 100 BaggersChristopher Mayer, 2015
- Distant ForceGeorge A. Roberts, 2007
- Rising To Power: Paul Desmarais and Power CorporationDave Greber, 1987
- The Joy of Achievement: Conversations with J.R.D. TataR.M. Lala
- Pleased But Not SatisfiedDavid L. Sokol
- The Story of Bank of America: Biography of a BankMarquis James and Bessie Rowland James, 1954
- Citibank: A Century in AsiaPeter Starr, 2002
- See's Famous Old Time Candies: A Sweet StoryMargaret Moos Pick, 2005
- The Farmer From MernaKarl Schriftgiesser, 1955
- Shaw Industries: A HistoryRandall L. Patton, 2002
- Secrets of Professional Turf BettingRobert L. Bacon, 1956
- Iron Will: Cleveland-Cliffs and the Mining of Iron OreTerry S. Reynolds and Virginia P. Dawson, 2011
- You Bet: The Betfair StoryColin Cameron, 2009
- The Little Book That Beats the MarketJoel Greenblatt, 2005