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World's Richest Man

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 25, 2009

The title of Alice Schroeder's biography about Warren Buffett is "Snowball -- Warren Buffett and the Business of Life." Schroeder opens her story with a vignette about a day in Buffett's childhood when he recalls catching a snowflake on his hand and then two more until he gets a handful, enough to roll a snowball unstopping through the world. As a child, Buffett was always engrossed with numbers. He counted things over and over again. As soon as he was old enough, he took an after school job delivering newspapers and then another before school. Very shortly, he had a very respectable bank account that he was always trying to figure out ways to make larger. Schroeder writes a very detailed summary of his life from early childhood until his current status as the world's richest man. Buffett assisted and aided Schroeder in her research. She reports he had a few bumps along the way and lost some money but he used each failure as a learning tool and used it to build his dynasty. He and his wife Susie have a great partnership together and most of all, he says, he did his Dad proud.

Even working at her innocuous job as a pet sitter can get Dixie Hemingway involved in murder. Blaize Clement tells how in "Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof." Dixie takes her business of caring for people's pets very seriously but she is rather lonely and wishes she had more friends. When she meets newcomer, Laura Halston, Dixie feels they could become good friends. Laura tells Dixie she is pregnant and fleeing from a vicious husband who will kill her if he finds her. But when Laura is murdered, suddenly Dixie learns more about her background and discovers Laura has made up much of what she told her and had created a persona of someone who doesn't exist. As Dixie learns more about Laura, she is forced to examine facets of her own personality that she had not been facing honestly. Dixie realizes there is a lot of truth to the old pop tune that says "You don't know me," and she vows to try to get to know some people, including a possible lover, much better before she lets them into her life.

Marie Wood is a book reviewer for The Sun. She may be reached at woMarie@aol.com.

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