Back when I was in college, there were ... let's say "interesting" ... names for college courses that fell outside one's own discipline. For example, there was a basic geology course -- not meant for geology majors to take -- well known as "Rocks for Jocks." Many marketers know that they have to reach outside their core constituency in order to grow that core. (Somewhere in this house, I even have a copy of Mathematics for the Non-Mathematician, which must have been a gift.)

The Secret Language of Financial Reports is really a "Business 101" course for non-business majors. It covers very (very!) basic concepts like assets and liabilities, and how these are included in the annual reports of companies. For a book that has as its very foundation lots of math, there is almost no math included in this book! Author Mark Haskins instead takes a more theoretical approach to explain where and how things might change without throwing numbers around.

And in some ways, this does seem to be a "liberal arts" type of book. Many of the examples are fictitious entities, but there are a few snippets of real annual reports. Unfortunately, that's all that is included -- snippets. There's no "sample" annual report at the end of the book to see how the pieces fit into the whole. The book is also repetitive at times: sometimes the same sentence is written in the text, in a pull-out box on the same page, and then in a review section of the chapter. Repetition does help with learning, but there were several spots where I kept thinking, "Didn't I already read that?"

Overall, Secrets is a good book for a person who is brand-new to financial information. The examples are well-written and easy to understand. Haskins also, after presenting a fair assessment of both sides to several "debates" in the financial world, openly shares his thoughts, asking why companies must hire their own auditors (thus opening the door for a conflict of interest) and why estimates can't (or won't) be made for contingencies in a financial report (his example was a tobacco company refusing to speculate on potential losses for losing ongoing lawsuits). Unfortunately, there's not enough "hard data" in the book to make you want to keep the book on your shelf and refer to it from time to time after you've read it the first time.

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LT Haiku:
Financial reports:
The secret is that the math
Can change what you see. ( )