4.5 Stars.
Funny enough, halfway through this book (and after yet another moment of accounting clarity) I said to myself "I bet this is the kind of book the Warren Buffet would like everyone to read!". Not two pages later, the authors start talking about Cash Flow and how Warren Buffet pretty much made several thousand lifetimes of money by paying close attention to what the Cash Flow Statement can tell you about a company's health. It's practical and straightforward like that.

Here's what else you should know about this book: it keeps its promises. Early on the the authors tell you they want to endow you with "Financial Intelligence", and they intend to do it painlessly. They want to show you what the numbers actually mean. Promises kept.

It's an easy read with cautionary tales peppered throughout. I for one, I have a much greater appreciation for the "art of finance", as the authors call it, as well as a much more discerning detector of accounting shenanigans and the "moral flexibility" encoded in biases and estimates in this area of finance...

It doesn't get a perfect rating because as the book progresses, the real-life examples become harder to come by (or they keep repeating the same one), and the concepts and terminology go from being widely applicable to being more or less useful to financial managers of large companies (inventory management, factories & plants, etc.).

I managed to graduate college without ever taking a single accounting course, so all of this was refreshing and highly educational.

Highly recommended!