The Urge to Splurge is, according to its subtitle, a Social History of Shopping. It isn't an academic book, but with its attention to history and detail, its wide range of subtopics having to do with shopping, and the excellent bibliography for further reading, it can serve as a reference work as well as an entertaining pop culture book.

Laura Byrne Paquet, a Canadian writer of romance fiction and Ottawa guide books, gives no hint of the distinctive (and different) styles that normally accompany both romance novels and travel writing. The tone here is conversational, even casual, while being very informative.

The Urge to Splurge covers Tupperware parties, Avon ladies, mail order shopping, TV infomercials, online shopping, compulsive shopping disorder, kleptomania, shoplifting, the differences between men and women shoppers, malls, markets, bargaining, eBay, department stores, and more. You'll learn about the transition from bargaining to fixed prices. Paquet tells us about the first escalator in Britain, which was in Harrod's and had no steps. "It was just a conveyor belt, so thrill-seeking passengers who dared to get on had to hang onto handrails for dear life." Yikes.

I was reminded that it was only a few decades ago that Sunday shopping was even possible in most places in North America and Britain. Long after Sunday shopping was the norm in the States, my husband and I spent a month in London and were disappointed to find that nothing was open on Sundays. After the first few restless Sundays, we started planning ahead, finding the few museums and shops that were open on Sunday afternoons, and eventually found ourselves looking forward to Sundays as the day when we could walk the streets and parks of London without the noise of the weekday traffic. Now Sunday is much the same as any other day of the week, shopping-wise.

The Urge to Splurge will make you think about your own shopping memories or maybe re-think your attitudes about shopping. The section on Tupperware reminded me that a good friend once invited me to a Tupperware party and that I had turned her down, for the very good reason that I simply could not become the sort of person who goes to Tupperware parties. It seemed I had no problem with being the sort of person who is a snob.

There's plenty of historical and social history in The Urge to Splurge, as well as a fair amount of interesting trivia. Perhaps you already knew that eBay did not really begin as a Pez dispenser trading site, or how many hundreds of thousands of dollars Jackie Kennedy Onassis spent on clothes each year. This is just a tiny bit of what you will learn from the book. My only complaint about the book is that it has no index.