Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry

From the Publisher

In a prolific life of singular literary achievement, Larry McMurtry has succeeded in a variety of genres: in coming-of-age novels like The Last Picture Show; in collections of essays like In a Narrow Grave; and in the reinvention of the Western on a grand scale in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Lonesome Dove. Now, in Books: A Memoir, McMurtry writes about his endless passion for books: as a boy growing up in a largely "bookless" world; as a young man devouring the vastness of literature with astonishing energy; as a fledgling writer and family man; and above all, as one of America's most prominent bookmen. He takes us on his journey to becoming an astute, adventurous book scout and collector who would eventually open stores of rare and collectible editions in Georgetown, Houston, and finally, in his previously "bookless" hometown of Archer City, Texas.

In this work of extraordinary charm, grace, and good humor, McMurtry recounts his life as both a reader and a writer, how the countless books he has read worked to form his literary tastes, while giving us a lively look at the eccentrics who collect, sell, or simply lust after rare volumes. Books: A Memoir is like the best kind of diary -- full of McMurtry's wonderful anecdotes, amazing characters, engaging gossip, and shrewd observations about authors, book people, literature, and the author himself. At once chatty, revealing, and deeply satisfying, Books is, like McMurtry, erudite, life loving, and filled with excellent stories. It is a book to be savored and enjoyed again and again.

Publishers Weekly

McMurtry (Lonesome Dove) calls this "a book about my life with books." He begins with his Texas childhood in an isolated, "totally bookless" ranch house. His life changed in 1942 when a cousin, off to enlist, gave McMurtry a box of 19 adventure books, initiating what eventually became his personal library of 28,000 books. "Forming that library, and reading it, is surely one of the principal achievements of my life," he writes, deftly interweaving book-collecting memories with autobiographical milestones. When his family moved to Archer City, Tex., he found more books, plus magazines, films and comic books. In Houston, attending Rice, he explored the 600,000 volumes in the "wonderful open-stack Fondren Library... heaven!" In 1971, after years of collecting, he opened his own bookstore, Booked Up, in Georgetown, Tex., relocating in 1996 to Archer City, where he created a "book town" by filling five buildings with 300,000 books. McMurtry offers opinions on everything from bookplates and audiobooks to the cyber revolution and 1950s paperbacks: "Paperback covers, many very sexy, were the advance guard of the rapid breakdown of sexual restraint among the middle classes almost everywhere." While there are anecdotes about bookshops and crafty dealers, McMurtry is at his best when he uses his considerable skills as a writer to recreate moments from his personal past. (July)

Anthony Pucci - Library Journal

In this fast-paced volume of reminiscences, acclaimed author McMurtry (Lonesome Dove) shares his lifelong love affair with books-not those he has written but those he has scouted, purchased, traded, kept, or sold. Starting with a gift from his cousin of 19 books, McMurtry has amassed a personal collection of about 28,000 books and estimates that in his career as an antiquarian book dealer he has owned approximately one million books. With remarkable clarity, he gives his readers a glimpse into the world of a bookman-its eccentric characters (one dealer would allow him to look at his books only through binoculars), its thrills (landing a copy of The Great Gatsby for $12 and years later learning that a similar copy sold for $168,000), and its disappointments (finding a perfect copy of a Nathanael West novel only to realize that the back cover had been gnawed away by rats). McMurtry notes sadly the decline of secondary booksellers, the increased use of audiobooks, and the growing presence of computers in libraries. Yet he expresses his belief that the love of books and the love of reading will never die. Anyone who reads this memoir will surely agree. Recommended for all libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ3/15/08.]

Kirkus Reviews

Having written about other aspects of his life, novelist and screenwriter McMurtry (When the Light Goes, 2007, etc.) finally gets around to his bibliomania. Just about the time his first novels were appearing in the 1960s, McMurtry was setting up shop as a book scout and dealer, working thrift shops and garage sales and other booksellers' stock to make, by his account, a pretty decent living. That he had long since become a voracious reader was not something anyone might have predicted. As he writes, he grew up on a little ranch nearly 20 miles away from the nearest library, with parents who apparently did not reach much beyond cattle-trade journals. "It puzzles me how totally bookless our ranch house was," he writes, though he did borrow the occasional cowboy book from a wealthy neighbor whose mansion McMurtry now owns and has filled with a library of-he tells us more than once-28,000 volumes. Rather frustratingly for his bibliophile readers, he doesn't go into much detail about what that library contains, save a smallish collection of 20th-century pulps. ("I'm hanging on to them," he writes, "against the day when I might want to write something Legmanesque about violence in American popular culture.") Like all booksellers, McMurtry is rueful about the rare book that got away, which, he counsels, is about the best way to learn. Yet, since his own early catalogues are rarer than most, he is fairly content to keep at his trade, which, when he is not winning book prizes and Oscars, involves keeping up a "book village" on the English model, but located on the high plains of north Texas. Elsewhere he writes of bookish eccentrics (though, as he warns, this book is mostly "personality-free"),deals gone right and wrong, chain stores, the Internet and the decline of reading, sticking to his guns even as he cautions that "it didn't take electricity long to kill off the kerosene lantern."A pleasant amble in Bookland and a treat for the bookishly inclined, as well as for McMurtry buffs.

Product Details

• ISBN: 1416583343
  
• ISBN-13: 9781416583349
• Format: Hardcover, 272pp
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group
• Pub. Date: July 2008
• Sales Rank: 4,746

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In this work of extraordinary charm, grace, and good humor, McMurtry recounts his life as both a reader and a writer, how the countless books he has read worked to form his literary tastes, while giving us a lively look at the eccentrics who collect, sell, or simply lust after rare volumes. Books: A Memoir is like the best kind of diary -- full of McMurtry's wonderful anecdotes, amazing characters, engaging gossip, and shrewd observations about authors, book people, literature, and the author himself. At once chatty, revealing, and deeplysatisfying, Books is, like McMurtry, erudite, life loving, and filled with excellent stories. It is a book to be savored and enjoyed again and again.

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