Your guide to making a pile

Surprisingly, the best seller at the specialist Good Returns Bookshop is Slash Your Taxes Now!, by Peter Sibbald. Sibbald's book has certainly saved me hundreds of dollars, but it isn't my favourite. That honour goes to the Motley Fool series of investment guides.

With so many personal finance books to choose from, which one should you go for? To give you a helping hand, the Herald asked some of New Zealand's financial gurus to name the books that taught them about money.

Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist (Main Street Books), by Roger Lowenstein $40.99

* Recommended by Jeff Matthews, senior financial adviser at Spicers Wealth Management.

"Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist shows if you are pretty smart and you work hard then all things are possible," says Matthews. "I've read it five or six times and it reconfirms to me that there is no such thing as a free lunch. There aren't any easy ways to make money quick. You need to be in it for the long haul.

"This book is a story about the world's greatest investor," says Matthews. "Warren Buffett's father lost his job and savings in the 1930s Great Depression.

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