Reading: Lending Library

Though it never received the national media attention it deserved, the sudden implosion of Washington Mutual Inc. remains a pivotal moment in the economic record of the Pacific Northwest. With colleagues from the Puget Sound Business Journal, Kirsten Grind was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in explanatory reporting for her dogged coverage of the WaMu collapse in 2008 and its aftermath in 2009. Now a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Grind has turned her meticulous research into a book, The Lost Bank: The Story of Washington MutualThe Biggest Bank Failure in American History. Grind provides a contextually local link to why the Great Recession happened and how it affected thousands of investors, employees and customers. A direct casualty of the collapse of banks like Washington Mutual that were caught up in high-risk mortgage lending was the American dream of home ownership. Jane Hodges, a former reporter for The Seattle Times who now writes about real estate and personal finance for a variety of publications and websites, is the author of Rent vs. Own: A Real Estate Reality Check for Navigating Booms, Busts, and Bad Advice. Hodges steers the reader through all of the confusing and conflicting guidance available before concluding, If the American dream is about upward mobility, the potential for innovation, freedom [and] the pursuit of novelty, perhaps housings role … is ripe for a reboot. Maybe owning a home isnt so much an answer as an option.

The Lost Bank by Kirsten Grind, Simon & Schuster, $27. Rent vs. Own by Jane Hodges, Chronicle Books, $18.95. J.L.