Reddit reviews Fool's Gold: The Inside Story of J.P. Morgan and How Wall St. Greed Corrupted Its Bold Dream and Created a Financial Catastrophe

In no particular order, here are several non-textbooks that were either required or recommended for higher level economics courses that I have taken:

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis

All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis
by Bethany McLean

Fool's Gold: The Inside Story of J.P. Morgan and How Wall St. Greed Corrupted Its Bold Dream and Created a Financial Catastrophe by Gillian Tett

Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk among Us by John Quiggin

ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism by Yves Smith

You might also have success looking through the "Customers also bought" sections for these books.

Subprime loans were not something new to the market, and just the subprime loans alone would not have impacted the economy to the extent that they did. The problem was that they were packaged into complicated financial instruments, which were then sold off, and banks became increasingly over-leveraged on these junk investments that were given AAA ratings by credit agencies who were essentially paid to do so.

This book talks about the situation extensively: http://www.amazon.com/Fools-Gold-Corrupted-Financial-Catastrophe/dp/1439100136/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Fool's Gold is the only good book on it:

Tett is a sharp journalist