I’m about to make an announcement, so sit down, please. Really – it’s for your own safety. Here goes: I do believe I enjoy book shopping more than clothes shopping. There, I’ve said it.

Today I spent five and a half blissful hours traipsing around Berlin trying to find a bookshop that would knock a few bucks off the price of a bestseller. It wasn’t about the money, not really – but the satisfaction you get from buying something you really want is multiplied infinitely when you get what you really want for a bargain price. Anyone’s who’s ever bought a stereo out the back of a truck knows what I’m talking about.

Anyway, it all started at Dussmann’s on Friedrichstrasse, where I found exactly what I wanted within six minutes of embarking on my mission (Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day, to be precise, which is all about the cock-ups you make learning a new language, like asking for the tellers in a German bank and naively thinking teller might actually mean teller, not a piece of crockery. More fool me.).

Thinking that it couldn’t possibly be over as soon as it had started, I readjusted the objective of my mission to encompass not just finding the book but finding the cheapest version in Berlin.

Now, I know you’re probably thinking I should rename this Diary of a Cheapskate, but I’m pleased to impart that in fact I had no qualms about shedding piles of dough on Berlin’s inordinately expensive subway to get to far-out bookshops in still unknown locations.

Indeed, when I finally found my sought-after little number tucked away in a Ku’damm alley for the bargain price of €9.53 (a good 37 cents cheaper than the Dussmann’s original), I was well pleased with myself. What with inflation, interest and what-not, I’ll be darned if that’s not nearly one Aussie dollar. Mission accomplished.