"No ordinary human being" is how Buffett's long-time collaborator Charlie Munger once described the man now known as the "sage of Omaha". And, it's perhaps telling that, in the middle of the meltdown of our financial system, as just about everyone—except national governments—was bailing out of banking stocks, Buffett injected a hefty chunk of cash into Goldman Sachs. Indeed his bid to recapitalise the bank set the tone for the Brown/Darling plan that everyone else has followed.

It's the sort of contrary move upon which he built a formidable reputation. Born just 10 months after the original "black Tuesday"—October 29, 1929—his father set an early example by launching a stock-broking business in 1931, at a time when no one wanted to buy stocks. Buffett himself launched his first venture just five years later at the age of six, selling chewing gum door-to-door.

All this—and much more—is documented in this immensely detailed account of Buffett's complex personal and business life. Written by Alice Schroeder, a former journalist and clearly one of Buffett's trusted inner circle, it offers extraordinary insights. While some will seek out details of the thinking behind his more notorious investment calls—notably his prescient decision to avoid getting sucked into the dotcom bubble—others will look to the broader business wisdom contained here.

If, at 960 pages, it feels a little longer and more detailed than it needs to be, it's worth noting Buffett's love for collecting and hoarding huge quantities of information. If the real gems for would-be investors are buried amid pages of his family history, the better the reward for those prepared to put in the time to discover them.

Most readily available are his views on the wisdom of investing for the long term, and they make more sense than ever as the volatility in world markets continues. As he says, "In the short run the market is a voting machine, in the long run it's a weighing machine. Weight counts in the long term, but votes count in the short term and it's a very undemocratic way of voting." 

This is an absorbing read. From the dustbowl of Nebraska in the 1930s, through his early career on Wall Street and on to his purchase and transformation of Berkshire Hathaway, events are detailed in a way that attempts to unpick some of the Buffett mystique. If nothing else, with the financial systems failing and the pursuit of wealth acquiring an almost sinister veneer, there's something guiltily refreshing about a life story so utterly devoted to the single-minded accumulation of money.

It's an obsession that, for Buffet, has been a sort of academic exercise. His pursuit of money is driven not by a desire to enjoy the finer things in life—his simple tastes and frugal nature are legendary—but by an impulse to collect money. If that sounds crass, his decision to give most of his fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation helps to put it into a longer-term perspective.

Bloomsbury £25