Good Book Hunting, Saturday, April 2, 2022: ABC Books

Yesterday, I made my way up to ABC Books for a book signing. It was no ordinary book signing; it was Mike Crocker, director of the Dickinson Park Zoo here in Springfield. I already knew a little about his book, as the zoo is part of the parks system, and my beautiful wife sits on the park board. So she already has a copy of it, and she has read excerpts to me that she really likes.

I made my normal loop (martial arts, poetry, philosophy) and also stopped by the contemporary mysteries section, and I got a few things.

I got:

• True Tales from the Dickerson Park Zoo by Mike Crocker, the signer in residence.
• Confess, Fletch by Gregory Mcdonald. My oldest and I watched Fletch together again a couple weeks back (the first time was last Spring), and I’m always trying to get him interested in the source material for movies. So I picked up this book, which was not on the shelf two weeks ago) but not Fletch Won which is a later entry in the series but deals with Fletch’s earliest adventure (because my attempts to get him to read real books are often futile).
• The Political Ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas edited by Dino Bigongiari, selections from Summa Teologica. Which I received for Christmas and have not started yet. Heck, I haven’t even found a good place to shelve it yet.
• The Poetry of Stephen Crane. I just read The Red Badge of Courage (book report forthcoming), so this leapt out at me and was like $6.
• Boxing: The American Martial Art by R. Michael Onello. This, too, was not present two weeks ago.
• Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals by Robert M. Pirsig, the Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance guy.

Were I a betting man, I would bet that I will read the zookeeper’s book first followed by the boxing book. But there’s no telling how soon either will be.