Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry

Books: A Memoir
by Larry McMurtry
Simon and Schuster
(2008)

To deviate a bit from the poetry-only course, we thought we'd share a quick review of Larry McMurtry's latest nonfiction title, Books. In addition to writing and publishing scores of screenplays, novels, and essays, McMurtry is a full-time book buyer, book seller, and certified book nut. Books is a very readable, absolutely engrossing first-hand account of McMurtry's passion for the reading, buying, selling, trading, auctioning, and whatever-else-ing of books.

For those unaware of the ins and outs of the book trade, this is surely the best ticket to the best show in town. Books is a series of autobiographical anecdotes, arranged, for the most part, chronologically. Each chapter--there are 109 spanning 259 pages--runs just a few paragraphs. These vignettes chronicle a cast of characters so diverse, so unexpected and rich, that this little memoir takes on a life of its own, reading like part travel narrative, part bildungsroman, part ode, and part elegy.

Not only do you get a glimpse into the culture of book dealers and book shops, you get a good look into the tortuous and eccentric world of collecting and collectors in general. A drawer full of handmade leather gloves, a narwhal's tusk, a collection of human skulls, 400 Ezra Pound letters in an ancient Winnebago--these objects and more are just few of the oddities that circulate through the narrative of objects at play in Books.

Yet this isn't just a book of curious tales, eccentrics, dusty shelves, and odd bedfellows; ultimately, Books is an elegy for a culture nearing the edge of extinction. McMurtry offers a sobering account of book store after book store being forced out of small towns and major urban areas alike due to the combination of rising rents, apathy for physical (vs. virtual) objects, and a literacy rate going the way of the dodo. McMurtry talks of our culture as one with an increasing propensity toward "narrative interruption," a culture that can't find the time to set a few hours aside to read a book, much less think about creating a home library.

Perhaps the most moving moment in Books is McMurtry's articulation of his own mortality. With a sober eloquence, McMurtry discusses the sadness he feels for the simple fact that he doesn't have the earthly time to reread each of the individual volumes in his personal, 28,000-book library, which includes, among other things, one of our nation's best collections of women's travel narratives. We can't praise this book enough, nor can we encourage you enough to make a pilgrimage to Booked Up, McMurtry's vast book store empire (it takes up the entire downtown of his native Archer City, Texas) whose inventory is not listed online. Which means, of course, that you've got to dig through the stacks. Go to the physical place. And while you're there you can wander down the street for some ice cream at the Dairy Queen and, if you feel so inclined, read McMurtry's excellent essay on book hunting called "Scouting," which appears in his collection Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen.

To read a review of Books by book dealer Charles Seluzicki, follow this link. Also, be sure to search your local independent record store for James McMurtry's many fine albums.

Happy book hunting.



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