Poor Charlie’s Almanac is a collection of talks and essays by Charles Munger, who together with Warren Buffett established Berkshire Hathaway as one of the greatest investment funds of all time. The talks cover topics from accounting practices to the role of psychology in business to general life advice for finding happiness.

Why you should read this book: It’s fun to read and has good life advice. This book exposes you to the mental models of a highly successful person. For me, the biggest takeaway was the framework of “mental models” itself! I knew about mental models, of course, but I had never thought specifically about the idea that a collection of mental models of how the world works might serve as a general-purpose system for problem-solving and understanding the world.

Why you should not read this book: If you’re looking for specific, quantitative, actionable investment advice, this is not the right book for you. I’m sure that Buffett and Munger have plenty of quantitative ways that they analyze their investments, but this is not that kind of book. This is a book that gives a window into the author’s philosophy and worldview.