May 26, 2008
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.
June 1, 2008
Born to a Texas ranching family in 1936, McMurtry had a"bookless" boyhood until an army-boundcousingave him a box of 19 books. Ever since then, McMurtry has surrounded himself with books. He has written a great number himself, of course, but perhaps he has derived more pleasure from his life as an ardentbook collector and bookseller.In his latest ruminating memoir, a low-key, shambling gathering of pithy essays, McMurtry recounts his adventures collecting comics, penny dreadfuls, pulp fiction, travel writing, andrare books, and setting up his bookstores. Hehappily describes the thrill of book scouting, warmly profiles "noted eccentrics" in the once vibrant secondhand book world, and nostalgically remembers their cluttered shops, havens for book lovers fast vanishing from the streets of America. It could be, McMurtry muses, that reading "is itself an eccentricity now," given that we live in a culture of interrupted and fragmented narratives. But as he purrs over his personal library of28,000 volumes, McMurtry suspects that the passion for books will live on.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)
Starred review from August 15, 2008
In this fast-paced volume of reminiscences, acclaimed author McMurtry ("Lonesome Dove") shares his lifelong love affair with booksnot 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 bookmanits 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, "LJ" 3/15/08.]Anthony Pucci, Notre Dame H.S., Elmira, NY
Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.