Season's greetings to Languagehat's readers, all of us! (Can one greet one's self? Of course! I will again, as soon as I shave this morning)
Sure, I'll look for the German, to start with, since that's toward the top of my resolutions list. Do they have a web site, or does one just ask at the local bookstore?

Their website is linked in the blockquoted text (I added the link so people wouldn't have to do the legwork). You can get them through amazon.de and doubtless elsewhere, but I'm no expert on getting German books via the internet; any suggestions from other readers?

Books are probably the easiest items to order internationally. It will cost you, of course, but amazon.de would be the way to go. They seem pretty comprehensive. Unfortunately, it puts those delightful little foreign book sellers out of business pretty quickly...but that's true for book sales in general. As a side note, in Vienna, somewhere near Stefansplatz, I believe, there is a fantastic travel and geography bookshop. I can't recall anything else about it, but a whole shop devoted to geography and language is truly awe-inspiring. Of course, I may be completely wrong about the location in Vienna, I just remember that it is in the inner city.

Sigh. Currently in Latvia, I'm declaring next year to be (amongst other things) Important Global Language Year. I really need at least crappy German and Russian.

You should certainly be able to pick up both in Latvia, and use them to get many dirty looks from the locals!

Message from Vienna (which is where I live): yes, Nathaniel, you're absolutely correct, there is this bookshop near Stephansplatz which is devoted to geography and travel, not so much to language, though (as far as I know). But there are other very good shops nearby for languages and literature and so on.
So if anybody is planning to go book shopping in Vienna, drop me a line and let's fight the death of the small bookseller...