I think I borrowed that book from the library. I don't remember much about it.
I do remember learning BASIC from a book called "Inside Atari BASIC" which was lightly dusted with cartoons and mild humor. Note the cowboy on page 139, and cute misattributions on page 128.
Some memorable points included the graphics mode comparison on page 98, the mentioning of "orange-green" on page 140 that made me wish there were such a color, and unbeknownst to me, the clear-screen character had a striking resemblance to a mouse pointer.
Unfortunately, by the time I checked out Dr. Wacko's book, I already knew too much BASIC to really take much more of it in.
Hmm, interesting book, I just checked out your points at http://www.atarimania.com/documents/Inside-Atari-BASIC.pdf
Yeah, I think I was in the same boat for the Dr. Wacko book I had, but again, that "arcade games" one would have been super helpful.