In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time—none. Zero. You’d be amazed at how much Warren reads—and how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.
Charlie Munger
Charlie Munger (1924-2023) was the late business partner of Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway.
Munger told me that reading was the key to getting wiser, and I believed him. After our first conversation, I started with The Psychology of Human Misjudgment, which might be, word-for-word, the best signal-to-noise ratio of anything I’ve ever read.
Find below a list of all the books he’s recommended over the years.
Charlie Munger’s Book Recommendations
1. Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field: How Two Men Revolutionized Physics
It’s a combination of scientific biography and explanation of the physics, particularly relating to electricity. It’s just the best book of its kind I have ever read, and I just hugely enjoyed it. Couldn’t put it down. It was a fabulous human achievement. And neither of the writers is a physicist.
2. Deep Simplicity: Bringing Order to Chaos and Complexity
… it’s pretty hard to understand everything, but if you can’t understand it, you can always give it to a more intelligent friend.
3. Fiasco: The Inside Story of a Wall Street Trader
I remember reading this shocking book and thinking, holy crap. This book will make you sick.
4. Ice Age
“(The) best work of science exposition and history that I’ve read in many years!”
5. How the Scots Invented the Modern World
A lot of really important stuff like: the first modern nation, the first literate society, the ideas for (modern) democracy and free markets, all originated with the Scots.
An autobiography of Nobel laureate Herbert A. Simon, a remarkable polymath who more people should know about. In an age of increasing specialization, he’s a rare generalist — applying what he learned as a scientist to other aspects of his life. Crossing disciplines, he was at the intersection of “information sciences.” He won the Nobel for his theory of “bounded rationality,” and is perhaps best known for his insightful quote, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”
… a wide-ranging exploration of how the fundamental scientific concept of temperature is bound up with the very essence of both life and matter.
The definitive biography of an industrial genius, philanthropist, and enigma. At the meeting in May of this year, Munger also mentioned the Mellon Brothers as people to study.
9. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
A book recommended by Bill Gates and Charlie Munger. Gates said the book “had a profound effect on the way I think about history and why certain societies advance faster than others.”
10. The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal
What is it about that two percent difference in DNA that has created such a divergence between evolutionary cousins? … renowned Pulitzer Prize–winning author and scientist Jared Diamond explores how the extraordinary human animal, in a remarkably short time, developed the capacity to rule the world … and the means to irrevocably destroy it.
11. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
A frequent and persistent recommendation from Munger. I believe he’s given away more copies of this book than any other. (You can get a great overview of the principles of persuasion in this podcast episode.)
12. Living within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos
While both books are exceptional, I prefer Hardin’s other book — Filters Against Folly.
13. The Selfish Gene
Dawkins explains how the selfish gene can also be a subtle gene. The world of the selfish gene revolves around savage competition, ruthless exploitation, and deceit, and yet, Dawkins argues, acts of apparent altruism do exist in nature. Bees, for example, will commit suicide when they sting to protect the hive, and birds will risk their lives to warn the flock of an approaching hawk.
14. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
From humble beginnings to the height of great power, Rockefeller’s story has something for everyone. You’ll find he has more in common with Marcus Aurelius than today’s billionaires and learn timeless lessons along the way.
Born the son of a flamboyant, bigamous snake-oil salesman and a pious, straitlaced mother, Rockefeller rose from rustic origins to become the world’s richest man by creating America’s most powerful and feared monopoly, Standard Oil. Branded “the Octopus” by legions of muckrakers, the trust refined and marketed nearly 90 percent of the oil produced in America.
15. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor
A best-selling exploration of why some nations achieve economic success while others don’t. As you can imagine, it’s complicated.
16. The Warren Buffett Portfolio: Mastering the Power of the Focus Investment Strategy
This book has been recommended by both Buffett and Munger on a few occasions.
17. Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters
Science writer Matt Ridley unfolds the genome for us.
18. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In
Every MBA student reads this book because it helps them negotiate better. Chris Voss does a better job of helping us learn the subtle art of letting other people have our way.
19. Three Scientists and Their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information
What is the meaning of life? This book examines the work and beliefs of three leading American scientists: Edward Fredkin, Edward O. Wilson, and Kenneth Boulding.
20. Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company
Grove gives us an inside account of how he, virtually overnight, changed the path of Intel forever.
22. No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality
Harris is a great detective and systematically works her way through the currently popular explanations, such as birth order, and explains why none of these solve the mystery of human individuality.
23. Darwin’s Blind Spot: Evolution Beyond Natural Selection
Author Frank Ryan believes cooperation, not competition, is a factor in natural selection. The dependence, for example, of flowering plans on insects and birds for pollination is symbiosis, or cooperation. Mixing symbiosis with Darwin’s theory gives us a more accurate picture of the natural world.
The book sheds light on the horrible experiences of Auschwitz and what they taught Viktor Frankl about life, love, and our search for meaning. When all seems hopeless, why do some people push forward while others subside?
25. The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design
In the eighteenth century, William Paley argued that a watch was too complicated to happen by accident, and so were living things. Darwin undercut that argument with his discovery of natural selection, and here, Dawkins offers an elegant riposte. Natural selection has no purpose; it is an unconscious, automatic, and blind watchmaker.
26. Judgment in Managerial Decision Making
An excellent overview of decision-making but a bit academic. Pairs well with this practical book on decision-making.
27. The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
Pinker, one of the world’s foremost experts on language and the mind, explores how language works, how we learn it, and how it evolves. He lands on the site of language being a human instinct, birthed by evolution.
28. Master of the Game: Steve Ross and the Creation of Time Warner
This is a biography of Steve Ross, whose career spanned from Wall Street to Hollywood, by an award-winning journalist. Ross was a polarizing figure, both revered and reviled, who sought out risky deals culminating in the empire of Time Warner.
29. In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives
This book is no surprise to those who follow Munger closely. He loves learning about engineering cultures.
Bestselling author and acclaimed physicist Lawrence Krauss looks at the biggest question: how everything that exists came to be in the first place. “Where did the universe come from? What was there before it? What will the future bring? And finally, why is there something rather than nothing?”
31. Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
A fascinating look at corporate America and Wall Street culture during the 80s by a masterful storyteller.
32. The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success
A book that details the extraordinary success of CEOs who took a radically different approach to corporate management.
Henry Singleton would be on the first ballot if there was a businessman Hall of Fame. Munger is rumored to have said that Singleton was the smartest person he ever met.
34. Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire
How Bill Gates transformed an industry when everyone was trying to prevent him. Gates wasn’t always the wealthiest person in the world.
A crazy story of how Claude Shannon used the science of information theory to make as much money as possible and as fast as possible. Excellent for the investing nerds.
36. Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story
An intimate exposure of Enron’s implosion. Think it can’t happen again? Think again.
37. The Martians of Science: Five Physicists Who Changed the Twentieth Century
If science had a hall of fame, the five men from this book, born at the turn of the twentieth century in Budapest – Theodore von Kármán, Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, John von Neumann, and Edward Teller – would all be members. Their work underpinned some of the most important political developments of the twentieth century.
38. Einstein: His Life and Universe
Munger, who reads every Einstein biography, considers this one from Walter Isaacson the best.
39. Getting It Done: How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge
A fascinating book full of practical ideas that takes a realistic view of organizations. If you work in an organization and wonder how to lead when you’re not the ‘leader,’ this book is for you.
40. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
One of Munger’s all-time heroes was Ben Franklin. This autobiography was written as a letter of instruction in the world’s ways.
41. Men and Rubber: The Story of Business
This book was so hard to find and packed with wisdom that when I managed to get my hands on it, I copied it out by hand and republished it myself so it would be readily available.
42. Les Schwab: Pride in Performance, Keep it Going
Les Schwab was the ultimate competitor and was a genius in setting up incentive structures.
43. Men to Match My Mountains: The Opening of the West 1840-1900
“There is nothing in history to match the stories of these men who braved wilderness to bring new nation to the shores of the Pacific.”
***
Three other books that might interest you are Damn Right!: Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger and, one of my all-time favorites, Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger and, of course, Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger.
Still Curious? Munger was the inspiration behind The Great Mental Models.