[bitcharmer]

Part of the premise behind writing the book was to explain to the public what happened and why.

There are several good analogies in both the book and the movie (ie. the chef and the fish) that greatly helped me understand the mechanics of it.

[wgerard]

The book and movie do a pretty solid job about explaining what CDOs, derivatives, etc. are.

What the book and movie don't do (unless I'm forgetting something) is explain how anything involved with the 2008 crisis was illegal - the sole exception being that CDSs are very arguably insurance contracts and should be regulated by insurance laws.