Helpful Score: 3
This book badly needs editing. It is the first book by McMurtry that has disappointed me. It reminded me of talking to and elderly person who keeps telling the same thing over again and doesn't remember mentioning it before, it's interesting to them only.
Helpful Score: 1
I agree with the above poster: this book does need some editing. I found a few mis-spelled words and awkward sentences. Then again, I'm sort of nitpicky about grammar things. If this sort of thing doesn't bother you, then great! That being said, this book wasn't really what I expected. Larry McMurtry is an antiquarian book dealer. He buys and sells the rare and hard to find books, and talks extensively about his unique experiences within the book trade. It's not a bad book, and is actually quite interesting. The chapters are very brief: several of them are only a page long, and almost all of them are less than five pages. It makes for a quick read. I liked it!
McMurtry is not one of favorite authors, but I can't resist any book with "Books" in its title. This memoir is about his lifelong passion for the printed word. He lived in a bookless home until a cousin gifted him with 19 boy's books. From that gift his collection grew until he filled several downtown buildings in Archer City, Texas (his home town) with his store, Booked Up, containing some 400,000 volumes of rare, antique, and collectible books.
I loved the charming, graceful, and humorous stories of one of America's most prominent bookmen.
I loved the charming, graceful, and humorous stories of one of America's most prominent bookmen.
I have been a fan of McMurtry ever since reading Leaving Cheyenne and The Last Picture Show back in the early 1970s. And then, of course, I read Lonesome Dove, probably my all-time favorite novel. This memoir, Books, is about McMurtry's love of buying, collecting, and selling books. He owns one of the largest antiquarian bookshops in the country located in his home town of Archer, Texas. Some day, I would like to visit this immense store. That said, I was pretty mixed on this memoir. I thought it would be more about the books that McMurtry read and loved but it was more about book buying and selling. There were endless stories about buying massive collections of books from people and/or stores that I have never heard of which to me made this a little tedious. He does talk about some of his interests including travel narratives and books about WWI and WWII. And he talks about his involvement in screenwriting and Hollywood which was somewhat interesting. But overall, I would only mildly recommend this to anyone interested in the fine art of book buying and selling.
