Half Price Books, thou slayest me.

The first week of February holds both my dad's and my brother's birthday, which means the second half of January is spent shopping for them. But sometimes a girl gets tired only shoveling out dough for the men in her family, so she has to take a little break and hit up Half Price Books, which is unfortunately only five minutes from my work. Their carts of $1 books lining the entrance and the shelves of equally cheap books near the back are my kryptonite.

Today I walked away with four books, all for less than two lattes. I suppose that's honestly a good way to finally cut down on my coffee intake: One latte = two books. That's a fantastic deal.

The first book I picked up was the novelized sequel to the fourth Star Trek movie, Probe, by Margaret Wander Bonnano. Is it silly that it excites me to see that a woman wrote this? I hope not. It's always thrilling to meet fellow female nerds, even if by "meet" I mean "read a book by." This novel promises to explain just what was the probe featured in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, which I certainly wondered about after watching the film.

My next find in the $1 clearance section was Rumpole and the Angel of Death by John Mortimer. I've never read any Rumpole stories yet, but my sister-in-law adores the PBS series as well as the books, so I thought, for a dollar? I'd give him a try. Just for you, Laura. Just for you.

The next book I picked up -- for "full" price, no less! -- probably shows why I have a fair amount of confidence as to why I'm going to enjoy Mr. Mortimer's collection of stories: P.G. Wodehouse's comedy novel Laughing Gas joined its mates in my arms. I've only ever read Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories before, but they're so stupidly thrilling that I'm sure the $2 I put toward this volume will be well-spent. Sounds like a classic story of switched-up bodies thanks to -- laughing gas? Well, we'll see how it goes~

Last, but incredibly not at all the least, was the most expensive book I picked up (a whopping $4!) and the one I'm most excited for. I try not to visit Half Price often and when I do, I try to avoid the literary criticism shelf and, even more than that? The "books on books" section. A thrill rushes down my spine if I even consider that label: books on books! Oh, the meta. Oh, the phantasmagorical volumes hidden in that beautiful section.

Today, I was unable to resist. I spent the last ten minutes of my lunch hour pouring over the options presented to me there, but I am very pleased with what I chose: Howard Rheingold's They Have a Word For It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words & Phrases. Containing such treasures as the Russian "razbliuto" (the feeling a person has for someone he or she once loved but now does not), the Chines "ta" (to understand things and thus take them lightly), and German's "zivilcourage" (Courage to express unpopular opinions), Rheingold has presented a fantastic collection of words we just don't have in English. He's separated them into categories such as those relating to gender and sex, states of mind, and technology. So many of these ideas are certainly found in all cultures, but I love the idea that certain societies deal with issues more often than others, so they form a word for that state of being that other groups might pass on by. It also makes me wonder what words we have in English that don't exist in other languages.

I need to learn to not go to Half Price Books but, like I said, at least it's an investment. Right?