Books!

I'm a reader. My mother is an editor, my Dad is a musician, and they raised nerdy, sensitive daughters who buy hardbacks and like comic books. Luckily, Portland is a book lover's dream: Lots of drizzly, Bronte-esque weather, independent coffee shops, and of course, Powell's.

Powell's literally takes up an entire city block in the Southwest. It's huge, and whenever I go in there I feel like Augustus Gloop in the Chocolate River. It's the largest independent bookstore in the world too, so you get to feel all cool and local when you frequent it.

Almost every classic book is in the public domain, which means you can almost always buy a used paperback copy for super cheap, I bought a really pretty edition of Shakespeare's sonnets there for 95 cents, and this copy of Anna Karenina was also hella reasonable for being like 8,000 pages long.

Price: $3 for Anna Karenina, rarely more than $5 for a used paperback.

Good for: Yourself, the nerd or student in your life.

Location: http://www.powells.com/ or any of the stores in the Portland area, but especially the flagship store.