Thanks for the invitation to discuss Ed Andrews' Busted. By way of introduction, I'm an editor at Newsweek, where I've covered the housing boom and bust, and I wrote a book called House Lust that chronicled the irrational exuberance over real estate during the first half of the decade.

I read Busted a few weeks ago in a single sitting. The author's personal story is really gripping and drives it along. Unlike most of what's been written about the housing meltdown, there's a story to Busted, and I stayed up ridiculously late because I wanted to find out how it ended. While Andrews' disintegrating finances (and, notably, its effect on his new marriage) form the heart of the book, he's filled out the story by exploring the supply chain of his loan. (This is the other two-thirds of the book he mentions in his introduction.) While these sections are less compelling than his personal story, I admired the imaginative way he managed to take what is essentially a really good magazine story (ie the excerpt that ran in the Times Magazine) and fill it out to create a book.

I've read a few of the recent books that have analyzed the housing debacle, and I definitely have a preference for books like this one in which the author was a participant. For readers who want to read this story from the other side of the mortgage-closing table, I'd suggest Richard Bitner's Confessions of a Subprime Lender, which gives an insider treatment to what brokers and lenders were thinking when offering dubious loans like the one Andrews signed.

A couple of thoughts on Andrews' tale:

--Throughout the boom and bust I've been struck by how many well-educated people simply don't understand the basics of personal finance. While Andrews' tale shows he had awareness of just how tight his budget would be with his new mortgage payment, the fact that he signed on anyway suggests to me his story is another data point in this educational failure. Schools spend a ton of time teaching kids all sorts of stuff with limited usefulness. (My oldest is currently memorizing the 50 state capitols). Wouldn't we all be better-served if they spent more time teaching how to prepare and live on a budget, the basics of compound interest, fixed versus variable rate loans, etc? Even though Andrews understood better than most borrowers the risks he was taking, he didn't seem to understand them well enough.

--As the author says, his book has received negative attention because he failed to disclose his wife's two bankruptcy filings (one prior to their marriage). My hat's off to The Atlantic's Megan McArdle for the smart spadework on this. Having read the book, I'd tend to agree this is a significant omission, and I'd be curious to hear whether Ed's book and NYT Magazine editors knew in advance that he'd left it out, and if not, their reaction to learning that fact.

--At the conclusion of Busted, it's unclear whether Andrews will be able to keep his house. I believe I've read that Andrews has suggested that Busted will need to be a bestseller (and pay royalties beyond the advance) if he's to keep his home. If Andrews cares to let us know whether anything has changed in his finances since the book ends, whether he's been able to get a loan modification, and his sense of the odds that he gets to keep the house, I'd be interested.

Thanks, and looking forward to the discussion.