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The other day my 14-year-old asked me whether I would re-live my teen years for $1 million. The answer was a resounding "No!" Memories of searing humiliation still lurk in my (scarred) subconscious. The senior prom alone could keep me chatting with a psychiatrist for months. (Even though, from what I've heard, my date is happily out of the closet and a very successful interior decorator. All's well that ends well, right?) At this point, those memories should be a funny, rosy glow far in the distance. Ha.

The only plus side to my inability to forget is that I keenly enjoy novels in which characters have suffered similar trauma. These five novels are perfect for reading on a beach, surrounded by friends, far from the horrors of the past — because our worst memories make wonderful reading.

For at least a millennium, the heart of Britain's commercial and financial industries has been the City of London.

The City is not the large metropolis we know as London. It's much older and smaller. Many call it the Square Mile, though it's not square and a bit bigger than a mile. It's the home to big banks, medieval alleyways and St. Paul's Cathedral. And, for all those centuries, the area has had the same local government with an unusual name: The City of London Corporation.

This little government does more than just run schools and collect what the Brits call rubbish. It's a stealth power.

Architecture

Change Is On The Horizon For London's Famous Skyline

Last week was a wild one for China's economy.

Interest rates on the loans that banks make to one another soared to alarming levels, and lending began to freeze up. Shanghai stocks nose-dived, taking Asian markets and the Dow, briefly, with them.

Things have calmed down, but the crisis showed how China's new leaders are trying to confront threats to the health of the world's second-largest economy.

Many here see it as the first shot in a long battle to reform a once-successful economic model that is now running out of gas.

In this particular case, the People's Bank of China — the nation's central bank — wants to cut down on rampant and risky lending. So earlier this month, in a departure from the past, it refused to pump money into the system when some banks desperately needed it.

"The central bank wants to send a message," says Oliver Rui, a finance professor at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai. "Don't take it for granted that whenever you need the money, you can easily get it."

Rui says the government was targeting midsized, state-run banks that lend into what's known as China's "shadow banking" sector.

Risky Lending

Here is an example of how shadow banking can work and why it concerns the government: A state-owned company borrows from a state-owned bank at a government-set low interest rate, maybe 5 percent.

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Belly Dancing For The Dead: A Day With China's Top Mourner

For at least a millennium, the heart of Britain's commercial and financial industries has been the City of London.

The City is not the large metropolis we know as London. It's much older and smaller. Many call it the Square Mile, though it's not square and a bit bigger than a mile. It's the home to big banks, medieval alleyways and St. Paul's Cathedral. And, for all those centuries, the area has had the same local government with an unusual name: The City of London Corporation.

This little government does more than just run schools and collect what the Brits call rubbish. It's a stealth power.

Architecture

Change Is On The Horizon For London's Famous Skyline