Are you besieged by gift catalogues this time of year? Our mail gets heavier and heavier. Fortunately, our town has instituted recycling for more than newspapers. Now we can include magazines, catalogues, even junk mail and other papers. But do you really shop from catalogues, or do you shop online? I’ll use a catalogue to prompt an online order. Most of my selections come from favorite sources: Hale Groves, for example, for Florida gifts sent to out-of-towners.  I also like Wine Country Gift Baskets for their value and variety. I may scan through holiday bookstore advertisements, but I’ll place most book or DVD orders with B&N or Amazon. Still, I ordered some stuff from a Home Trends catalogue recently that I might not have seen otherwise. Some of these brochures can be fun to peruse. You might find something unique and interesting.

My catalogues go into what we writers call a "slush pile" when they arrive at my house. Some I’ll toss right away if the items don’t interest me. Some I’ll keep to pour (pour or pore?) through later. Others will be added to the shelf in my office where I stash catalogues I like to hold onto for a while. It helps if you date the catalogues as they arrive. Then you can discard earlier versions.

No question about it, though, looking through these things take time. Now here is a topic of interest to you writers out there. Which catalogues would your heroine or hero enjoy?