Good Book Hunting, Saturday, October 23, 2021: ABC Books

Yesterday, we stopped at ABC Books for a book signing since we were in the area (well, an hour away in Wheatland, Missouri, for a cross country meet). I was pleased the meet was not delayed so long that I could not make the afternoon book signing. We actually got there, still cold and wet (going on five hours of being cold and wet), right as the signing started, actually, so the authors were talking with some other fans and blocking the way to the martial arts books, so I could not complete my regular circuit.

I wanted to get home, so I did not linger, but I did pick up a couple of things to read by the warm fire.

I got:

• The signing authors’ book, Ozarks Hillbilly: Stereotype and Reality by Tom Koob with Curtis Copeland, a study with anecdotes about the archetype. Hopefully more anecdotal than academic.
• Horizons and Landmarks, a 1911 collection of poetry by Sidney Royse Lysaght. From 1911, not about the gun.
• Fugitive Blues, a chapbook by Debra Kang Dean published by Moon City Press who has recently rejected some of my new poetry. Not that I will let my bitterness affect my review. If it’s contemporary poetry, I shall be cranky about it anyway.
• At The End of the Rainbow by Mary Morley Gunn, vintage grandmother poetry comb-bound from 1974.
• I Once Gazed At You In Wonder by Jan Heller Levi which is a hardback collection of poetry from 1999.
• Everything You Need to Know About Philosophy, an entry in the Pocket Professor series by Steve Herman, Ph.D., with Gregg Stebben. It will go along with the Giants of Philosophy audiocassettes I’ve been listening to, and it will augment what I have learned there or, if it’s too contemporary, make me angry. It’s shorter than the Copleston History of Philosophy series, anyway.

I won’t go into how much I spent since I’m moving out of the cheapest books that Mr. and Mrs. E. have to offer, but they’re not the really nice collectibles that they have that I hope to get with gift cards some day. At the end, though, I would probably be better off just buying the bookstore in toto instead of a little at a time. Perhaps then I would limit myself to taking a book or two at a time when I’m looking for something to read instead of buying five or ten to put on my shelves and then read one or two before I’m back again.