The Crimson Petal and The White, by Michel Faber

I read this marvelous novel some three years ago. At least it seems that long ago. I still think about it occasionally. Now it seems it is in development for a film version. The story centers on a love affair between a wealthy lavender farmer / perfumer / soap maker and his young prostitute beauty. He finds her and begins to be her benefactor and sex partner as he deals with a mentally disturbed wife and an ill daughter. The story progresses with the young lover striving to keep the relationship alive and using it to improve her lot in life. The ending is quite unexpected. You will find this book impossible to put aside until you have read all of the over 840 pages. Michel Faber is an amazing author of solid fiction. Of course you can order it in paperback from Amazon.

What I suspected is now a known fact: Goldman Sachs is a den of thieves

I do not think I have mentioned it, but by the day that Bear Stearns fell in after hours collapse, I had lost almost evey dollar of my retirement and savings funds in the messed up stock market. I had begun to trade in 2006, and was doing fine as long as the market was hot and going up. Then it turned sour,and despite all my amateur efforts to margin trade, I kept losing consistently, each time trying again only to lose more and more. I wound up losing my home to foreclosure, filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy and ruining my credit. I had to leave the house and took a temporary job in Arizona, which was a disaster. After three months I quit that miserable job and returned to California to take another job which also lasted just three months. I was maligned and abused in both of these jobs, and have now been employed just six months total in the past 4 years. I am broke and angry. I lost over $780K. At 63 years old, overqualified with waaaay too much education, there are no employers who want to hire me. I have applied for over 100 jobs (all of which I am qualified to do), with not even one call back. This is the American dream? More like a nightmare. I am glad to see the news being revealed of the depth of the corruption in our system and the devastation it does to ordinary people like me.