Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
Black Swan, 320pp, £7.99:

Re-released this year to coincide with its adaptation for the big screen, this chick-lit novel has become a classic of the genre and the first in a series of five Shopaholic books. It is a must-read for anybody who is feeling that credit-crunch guilt - the slightly sickening feeling you get when you know you've got a pile of unopened bank statements somewhere, and, by a strange coincidence, many, many pairs of pretty shoes stacked in the wardrobe.

Becky Bloomwood spends her working life as a financial journalist, writing articles about sensible saving, yet in her personal life she has to concoct increasingly absurd excuses in order to fend off the debt collectors after too many trips to the shops. As the series progresses, these excuses become slightly tiresome and annoyingly far-fetched, but in the original the humour rivals that of Bridget Jones's Diary.

This piece of "shopping porn", with its highly provocative descriptions of 100 per cent cashmere scarves and Manolo Blahnik high heels, is pleasing to anyone who loves the sound of a credit card being swiped. The romance is light and warming and crucially this is a book which, despite its gloomy relevance to the current economic climate, lifts the spirits rather than plunging the reader further into recession depression.
Frances Weaver