I know, it’s been a whole week since I was at ABC Books, but as I announced as I entered, I had read three of the books (out of seven) that I bought last week so I needed more.
Actually, I visited because ABC Books hosted Donald D. Shockley for a book signing, and, as you know, I go up to get signed books whenever I can.
I only got four books this trip. Well, five, sort of.
I got:
- Shockley’s Fertile Crescent Religions, a history of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Shockley, an engineer, spent a lot of time in the Middle East and wanted to write this history from a Christian perspective. It’s got full color maps throughout and short, topical chapters, so I’m looking forward to reading this book soon, or someday if it gets lost in my stacks. I am primed for whenever I go on a Biblical history kick that is not bogging myself down in Kings/Kingdoms/Chronicles.
- Bass 1 in case I want to learn to play my newest instrument.
- The second of Jeff Patrick’s Rock Rogers books, Subzero. I read his first book, My Name Is Rock last week, and I wondered if it was supposed to be young adult. The proprietrix said this was indeed the case: the author wanted to write military thrillers his kids could read without sex and language and a little bit of prayer instead. So I bought another copy of My Name Is Rock and gave it to my boys to see if they’re interested in it. I mean, I wasn’t going to give them my copy to sleep with and to store on the floor of the truck beneath their wet feet for months.
- A Few Flies and I, a collection of haiku by Issa. R.H. Blyth, whose Games Zen Masters Play I read last autumn, is one of the translators.
I will leave it up to you, gentle reader, to speculate as to which of the books I read first. I think it might be the Jeff Patrick book, as I’ve got a couple volumes of poetry in the poetry-reading queue already. I won’t actually “read” the bass book–books on how to play musical instruments are like technology/how to program or reference books in that I don’t go through them from beginning to end in a way that I do with fiction, other non-fiction, or poetry. I don’t get around to reviewing them because I never actually “finish” the book. Also, I don’t have a great track record on learning the skills in the books, either, but that’s more me than the books themselves.
At any rate, it was good to go to an author signing again.
