“Buddy, can ya spare a dime?”

Back in 29 a dime might have gotten you an overcooked cuppa Joe and a stale donut. Today, it wouldn’t buy you the paper cup. In this twenty-first century example of financial crash-and-burn, entertainment is going to be hard to come by. Most any form of entertainment, things we took for granted just a year ago, is going to slap hard against the tight fist you’re trying to wrap around what money you have left.

Eating out has become a luxury one can hardly afford, despite the many restaurants that are cutting their prices to the bone. I’ve been watching restaurants closing their doors left and right around here. Movies, theaters, concerts? Have you seen the cost of those tickets?

Vacation? Surly you jest. Who the hell can afford a vacation right now?

So, what do you do? Hunker down at home, break out the cheap chips and dip and huddle around the boob tube? That sounds like fun.

There’s an alternative. It’s called books. Books are cheap and, unlike a meal at a restaurant or a movie ticket, books are reusable. You can trade books with your friends, your family. And books offer not only hours of entertainment but, during those hours you get a break from all the gloom and doom on the TV news, some relief from the financial fear. Good for the soul, good for the attitude.

And, being that all this financial meltdown is coming right at the start of the Holidaze season, books make an excellent, inexpensive present.

And here’s an added bonus: Buy a book, several books if you can afford it, and get involved in a growing movement to list a million books purchased. Karen Dionne, author of Freezing Point and co-creator of BackSpace, the finest writers forum on the planet, has started the blog When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Buy Books where you can list the books you’ve purchased either for yourself or as gifts. The goal is to list one million books purchased and the list is growing every moment. Why not add yours to the list.