It used to be that the opening gun for Christmas shopping sounded the week after Thanksgiving. Now it’s the week after Halloween, and shoppers, run don’t walk to The Costco Experience by Larry Gerston. The author leads two lives, one as a political science professor with a number of academic texts under his belt. But he’s also an admitted shopaholic, unable to stay away from shopping malls and particularly from Costco. Because his eyes are bigger than his wallet and he knows that you suffer the same compulsion, he’s written a shopper’s survival guide. You don’t want to go into the high holidays of consumption without this indispensable book.

- Richard Curtis