Also, "Paris au temps de Balzac" is a $40 coffee-table book, and it wasn't on the gift card. But I have been lusting after it for months and periodically going back to the Carnavalet bookshop to stroke it and page through it and verify that it's just as shiny as I remember, therefore it is a justifiable splurge.

If you keep going back for it, it is a justifiable purchase, especially if it's something you can only get in France.

I just bought thirty shiny, shiny books for the price of a nice theatre ticket.

Hee. I just spent a boatload of money for someone's birthday in NYC this weekend. I had fun, but I admit the thought "I coulda bought 5 books for that much" passed through my mind.