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Soft economy? What soft economy?

DALLAS — For shoppers seeking a bit — or a lot — of holiday extravagance, the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book unveiled Tuesday is offering options like a $420,000 tour of European flower shows on a private jet and a $250,000 handcrafted mahogany speedboat.

At a cost of $1 million, customers can have a fountain installed at their home. The “his and hers” gift features two underwater robot nozzles that will be programed to make the water “dance” to music. If that's not in the budget, though, there's also the calendar paperweight for $25.

The Dallas-based luxury retailer, known for the extravagant and often outrageous “fantasy gifts,” said the 85th edition of its catalog has about 600 items, with almost half of them under $250.

Who wants a Nieman Marcus item under $250? That's not even worth leaving an Occupy Space event for, especially if it's one serving salmon cakes with dill sauce and  a "wonderful tomato salad with fennel and red onion."

The most interesting offering to someone like me is a custom-built library:

Publishing house Assouline is offering a custom-built library filled with 250 of their books for $125,000. Eduard de Lange, vice president of sales and distribution for New York-based Assouline, says the company will create the library anywhere a customer choses: “It could be in a mansion. It could be on a boat, on an airplane,” he said.

Just a tad extravagant. When I ran out of shelf space at my house (and closet space and stacked-on-the-floor-in-the-corner space), I created a custom library by piling books on one side of the stairs going to the second floor -- hey, I need only one side to walk on. Cost: zero. Feel free to copy the idea. Just send me a small finder's fee.