Sarah’s audio book reviews can be heard on alternate
Mondays on KMUW 89.1. Read a transcript below of her most recent review or
listen at:
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kmuw/.artsmain/article/16/59/1310200/Sarah.Bagby's.Book.Review./Sarah.Bagby's.Book.Review/
“Books: A Memoir” by Larry McMurtry (Simon & Schuster, 9781416583349,
$24.00)
“Books: A Memoir” is a treasure trove. It overflows with gems from the
one-of-a-kind Larry McMurtry: a prolific writer best known for “Lonesome
Dove,” but also a passionate reader and a dedicated bookstore owner. This
new book, McMurtry’s forty-first, is a meditation on book collecting and a
glimpse into the eccentricities of the second-hand book business. It’s also
a social history of the production and distribution of literature-both
popular and classic. McMurtry muses on the physical and the intellectual
nature of books, and his reflections on his writing career make this
enjoyable volume perhaps the most well rounded memoir on books ever.
McMurtry acquired his first collection of books (nineteen hand-me-downs
given to him by a neighbor) as a boy during the Depression. Today he owns
the prominent Booked Up, a city-block of bookstores in Archer City, Texas.
Each day since those first hand-me-downs, he spent in the presence of books.
In these short essays we learn of the revolution brought about by the
invention of the paperback, of how a home library stocked with encyclopedias
became a marker of class, and of the differences between rural and urban
libraries in the 1940’s and 1950’s.
Taking us from his boyhood spent in a house NOT filled with books, to his
academic years at Rice, through the publication of his first novel, and
finally, to the opening of his bookshop, McMurtry’s memoir articulates the
many tactile, historical, human pleasures of owning and holding a book.
Review by
Sarah Bagby,
July 31, 2008
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