Hmmm.... Can I Buy It?

I almost blew it yesterday morning and violated my no-shopping vow, in which I don't bother wondering about how great the email deal is going to be, because I'm not buying stuff.  So I've unsubscribed from a bunch of email lists for corporate deals, and I ignore invitingly open doors next to sale signs.

But yesterday, when I should have been grading papers, I finally read the New York Times review of Blue Water, White Water, about how doctors and nurses treat a guy stuck in a hospital bed, and then surfed over to the Amazon page for the book.

The Kindle version is $4.99, which is basically my threshold.  At that price or lower I'll buy it right away, because even if I wait for used paperbacks to hit the market, they won't be much cheaper.

I hit "buy now," and was saved from an immediate impulse purchase only by the fact that I wasn't logged in to Amazon.

But wait a minute.  I'm teaching an independent study this semester on Chaucer and disability, and I have an article coming out in an academic journal on blogging disability.  Does that mean the book is fair game, because it counts as "work" and not "pleasure" reading?