Tap Dancing to Work: Warren Buffett on Practically Everything, 1966-2012

Loomis was a Fortune journalist and Buffett's friend and editor of his shareholder letters for decades. She collected articles about Buffett and by Buffett from Fortune between 1966 and 2012, arranged chronologically with her own commentary connecting them.

The value of the format is that it captures what was said at the time rather than in retrospect. The 1966 piece describes a young money manager most readers had never heard of. The 1977 article on inflation and equities, which Buffett wrote himself, is one of his clearest pieces of analysis and explains why inflation damages businesses that require heavy reinvestment. The 1999 Sun Valley speech, reported by Loomis, argued that market returns over the following seventeen years would be far lower than the preceding period, which was published near the technology peak and proved accurate.

Other material covers his 2003 warning about derivatives, the 2008 opinion piece announcing that he was buying American equities, the Salomon Brothers episode, his views on executive compensation and on accounting, and the philanthropic pledge. Loomis' commentary provides context and she is candid about her friendship, which readers should weigh since it is not an independent account.

The collection overlaps with the shareholder letters and with other Buffett compilations. Its distinctive contribution is the contemporaneous journalism showing how Buffett was regarded before the record was established, and the pieces he wrote for a general audience rather than for shareholders, which are more expository than the letters.