Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Book review

Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life. By Alice Schroeder. Bantam Books, 960 pages. $35.

It's a paradox that a biography of Warren Buffett weighs in at 960 pages. As revered as Buffett is--everyone's favorite wise investor, perhaps the world's richest man and a figure of endless fascination to business writers and observers--his lifestyle and philosophy are really about simplicity rather than complexity.

Indeed, much has always been made of Buffett's core beliefs in fundamentals from investment teachers like Benjamin Graham, his insistence on focusing his life in Omaha, Neb., and his meat-and-potatoes, rumpled off-the-rack style, so diametrically opposed to the lavish lifestyles of traditional Wall Streeters.

The title of Schroeder's book comes from one of Buffett's favorite aphorisms: "Life is like a snowball. The important thing is finding wet snow and a really long hill." It's a good metaphor for someone who ardently believes in building from a stable base rather than, say, hunting for Silicon Valley's "new new thing."

Unsurprisingly, the Oracle of Omaha has been pursued by writers and editors for years like that great white whale. None landed him. Buffett hand-picked Schroeder, a former insurance industry analyst and Morgan Stanley managing director. She spent thousands of hours in interviews with him, according to publicists; he gave her "unprecedented" access to his business, family and friends.

In choosing Schroeder, Buffett reinforces his fascination with and trust in smart and influential women--including Katherine Graham, longtime publisher of The Washington Post; and Carol Loomis, a doyenne of business reporters from Fortune. The resulting book is a hugely detailed, intimate and revealing portrait that essentially lives up to its weight.

Much of it is structured as a straight, mostly chronological biography that leaves almost nothing unexplored--from his childhood as a shy, socially awkward boy in Nebraska, through his college years in Philadelphia and New York. It traces his burgeoning career as an astute investor and buyer...