Pieter Slegers — My Summer Reads
Ten books, no stocks: the reading list behind the philosophy — Berkshire's full financial history, defensive investing, Darwin applied to businesses, two Jim Collins titles, and a book about the four kinds of wealth that are not money.
One-line take: a reading list with no securities in it, archived for the education index. The one hard number is a claim about volume: "Since I started tracking my reading in 2024, I've read 241 books" — roughly two a week, sustained for two and a half years, with the standing offer to email the full list. The stated purpose is the archive's whole learning premise in one line: "The goal is to go bed a little bit smarter than when you woke up. Every. Single. Day. You should be a continuous learning machine." The selection is more interesting than the individual titles: only three of the ten are investing books in the usual sense, and the emphasis falls on business quality (Collins twice, Nyland, Prasad), capital allocation and dealmaking (Jacobs), avoiding permanent loss (Tilson) and life outside money (Bloom) — which is a reasonable description of what the letter actually writes about. One anomaly: the numbered list opens with the author's own book, The Art of Quality Investing, but the closing summary silently substitutes Brett Gardner's Buffett's Early Investments in that slot, so eleven titles appear across the two lists. Both are recorded; the education entries carry all eleven.
1. The reading list
No stock table: the post names no company with a view. Companies that do appear — Costco, Nike, Microsoft, LVMH, Amazon, See's Candies, GEICO, Apple — are inside descriptions of what the books are about, and are not archived as mentions.
| # | Book | Author | Why it is on the list, in his words |
|---|
| 1 | The Art of Quality Investing | Luc Kroeze & Compounding Quality | The house book: "What is quality investing? · The characteristics quality stocks have · How to find these companies yourself · Plenty of practical examples." (Replaced by Brett Gardner's Warren Buffett's Early Investments in the article's own closing list.) |
| 2 | The Complete Financial History of Berkshire Hathaway | Adam Mead | "If you're a Berkshire Hathaway fan, this book is a goldmine… how it was transformed from a failing textile business to a global conglomerate. You'll read deep dives about investments like See's Candies, GEICO, and Apple. A must read book for any serious investor." |
| 3 | The Art Of Playing Defense | Whitney Tilson | "Most investing books focus on finding the next big winner. But this book teaches you how to avoid the mistakes that can permanently damage your portfolio (and life)… fraud, bad management, and excessive debt… protecting your capital should always come first." |
| 4 | Lessons From The Titans | Scott Davis | Described as a study of "Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Charlie Munger, and John Templeton… a closer look at their careers to understand what made them so successful." (Note: the published book of that title is a study of industrial companies — GE, Honeywell, Boeing — not of those four investors. The description appears to be mistaken.) |
| 5 | How To Make a Few More Billion Dollars | Brad Jacobs | "A college dropout who goes on to complete over 100 acquisitions… he built and scaled eight multi-billion dollar companies… hiring great people and building a strong culture to growing sales, making smart acquisitions, and allocating capital wisely." |
| 6 | What I Learned About Investing from Darwin | Pulak Prasad | "The world's best companies share many of the same traits as the species that survive in nature. They adapt. They stay resilient. They continuously improve over time." |
| 7 | Good To Great | Jim Collins | "Great companies are rarely built on a single product, strategy, or lucky break. They are built through strong leadership, the right people, and years of disciplined decisions." |
| 8 | The Compounders | Kjetil Nyland | "What do companies like Costco, Nike, Microsoft, and LVMH have in common?… repeating patterns: strong brands · great management · loyal customers · the ability to reinvest profits at high rates of return." |
| 9 | The 5 Types of Wealth | Sahil Bloom | "Time Wealth: control over your time · Social Wealth: strong relationships and community · Mental Wealth: a clear mind and sense of purpose · Physical Wealth: good health, energy, and fitness · Financial Wealth: money that gives you freedom." |
| 10 | Turning The Flywheel | Jim Collins | "When high-quality decisions are taken over and over again, it catches a momentum. This is what he calls a Flywheel… small positive actions when repeated consistently over time, create extraordinary results." |
| — | Warren Buffett's Early Investments | Brett Gardner | Appears only in the closing summary list, in place of The Art of Quality Investing. No description is given. |
2. Talking points
The reading claim
- "Since I started tracking my reading in 2024, I've read 241 books." The operative word is tracking — the number exists because it is measured.
- The full list is available on request by email, which makes the claim checkable rather than rhetorical.
The stated purpose of reading
- "Have you ever met a very smart person who didn't read a lot?"
- "The goal is to go bed a little bit smarter than when you woke up. Every. Single. Day. You should be a continuous learning machine." A daily increment rather than a target.
What the selection is actually about
- Four of the ten are about why some businesses stay good — Collins twice, Nyland's The Compounders, Prasad's Darwin book. That is the same question the archive's six-criteria framework asks.
- One is about capital allocation and dealmaking (Jacobs), which is the skill the letter treats as the CEO's most valuable.
- One is about avoiding permanent loss (Tilson) — the only defensive book, and the one that maps onto the archive's repeated insistence on not paying up.
- One is not about money at all (Bloom), consistent with the sign-off of the summer break letter: "Don't forget to live. Wealth matters, but love matters more."
The Darwin analogy, and its limit
- "The world's best companies share many of the same traits as the species that survive in nature. They adapt. They stay resilient. They continuously improve over time."
- This is the same survival-as-evidence reasoning that the Lindy Effect series later turns into a screen on corporate age.
The flywheel, restated as compounding
- "Small positive actions when repeated consistently over time, create extraordinary results" — Collins's flywheel is being used here as a description of the letter's own method (monthly additions, a fixed screen, a monthly rating cycle) rather than only of a business.
Two things to note about the list
- The description of Lessons From The Titans does not match the published book, which studies industrial conglomerates rather than four investors — worth flagging before ordering it on the strength of the summary.
- The closing list quietly swaps the author's own book for Brett Gardner's Buffett's Early Investments, which is not described anywhere in the body. Eleven titles, ten slots.
Summary derived from the archived Compounding Quality post (text in transcript.txt) for personal study. No securities were named with a view in this issue. Not investment advice. © Compounding Quality / Pieter Slegers for source material.