The Lost Bank: The Story of Washington Mutual-The Biggest Bank Failure in American History

Not a particularly spectacular or deep book, but a decent overview of the collapse of the Washington Mutual Bank in September, 2008. The author does a decent job of going through the history of the institution, and pointing out where management errors were made. The long-time head of the bank, a fellow named Killinger, comes out very poorly, indeed, a model of mismanagement at the highest level. (Killinger, according to Wikipedia, challenged the description of him in an open letter.) A lot of anecdotes strung together (including the requisite poor folks in grotty suburb of LA), but given the relative simplicity of the factors that led to WaMu's collapse, there's not much to say.

This is a great book for the first 75% where the reporting is detailed, insightful and clearly with inside the bank knowledge. But once we get to 2008, the details become lighter and the specific dynamics of board room negotiations I totally lacking. The author has a great pulse on what happened in Seattle and at WaMu but no insider status in washington or new York. A good read and history of WaMu but the last part of the book is thin and disappointing.

Very well-written narrative of the history of WaMu and other players (regulators, banks, etc.) in the 2008 mortgage debacle. (For those who forget, WaMu was the largest bank until it gained the title of the largest bank failure.)