As frequent readers know, I buy most of my books on-line, so going out to an actual bookstore is a daunting experience of actually having the books present, which can be as awkward as going to a cocktail party full of folks you've only met on IRC. However, the Barnes & Noble up the street was having a 75% clearance sale on one table, which featured a lot of their publications (which have cover prices about 1/3 of what a comparable book from another publisher would be), so I got 4 new hardbacks and 1 new large-format paperback for between $2.00 and $2.50 each ... with tax the total for all 5 books came to $12.24 ... that's even better than getting a new/used book from one of the Amazon vendors for 1¢ and having to add on the $3.99 shipping!
Go me ... this was exactly the sort of deal that I was hoping to hit.
I've even started two of them (well, one just getting through the introductory material so that I can jump into Chapter 1 on the subway come Monday), so you'll no doubt be hearing more details soon.