ABC Books had a book signing this weekend, so I made my way up there. I’ve missed a couple over the last couple of months due to travel and other obligations, so I was eager to visit since the proprietrix appreciates that I do.
I only got a couple of books, though.
The author signing books, Larry Wood, was promoting his latest book, Bigamy and Bloodshed, which is a case about a man who becomes involved with a temperance heroine but turns out to have been still married, and he kills his earlier wife.
I was familiar with the story, as I had read about it somewhere, and I asked him if he’d excerpted it elsewhere. It turns out I read about it in his earlier book Wicked Springfield, Missouri.
I bought a copy of Bigamy and Bloodshed and another collection called Murder and Mayhem in Missouri as well as a copy of Wicked Springfield Missouri for my boys, one of whom is really into true crime. I also picked up a copy of The Book of Five Rings, a treatise on sword fighting from Japan. I picked up a book called The Martial Artist’s Book of Five Rings, an American commentary on the original work, at a previous trip to ABC Books and told the store manager I’d like to get my hands on a copy of the original. So I was sure to thank him for laying one up for me.
So it’s only three books, but I’m mostly ‘reading’ picture books these days with everything else going on. Hopefully, I will get some time to read books books sometime this year.