Saturday, January 08, 2005
McMurtry's bookstore(s) -- Page 1
We're off to Texas today, Bird and I, she to reclaim her car, which quit her down there on Christmas Day, me to get her there, to see a friend or two and to head on down to Archer City to peruse the zillions of books at Booked Up Inc., novelist Larry McMurtry's store.
"Book town" is more like it. He has taken over five big buildings around the town square. See the link above. It's heaven for bibliophiles of all stripes.
Archer City, about 25 miles south of Wichita Falls, Texas, is McMurtry's hometown, where they filmed the classic "The Last Picture Show" and the not-so-classic-but-still-funny-satirical-and good-to-me "Texasville." Once, in '89, tryin' to get to the courthouse for some story I was workin' on, I drove by as they were filming an outdoor scene for "Texasville" with Cybill Shepherd and Jeff Bridges. Major cool.
At the store, I will check out the American Indian, Oklahoma, Texas and Southwest sections, as usual, give a glance to the Civil War-era stuff, somewhat knowingly (now) peruse anything on the Reformation and late medieval-early modern Europe, and cap it with a stroll down the aisle with 19th-century American literature.
A finer way to spend the day I cannot imagine.
--ER
"Book town" is more like it. He has taken over five big buildings around the town square. See the link above. It's heaven for bibliophiles of all stripes.
Archer City, about 25 miles south of Wichita Falls, Texas, is McMurtry's hometown, where they filmed the classic "The Last Picture Show" and the not-so-classic-but-still-funny-satirical-and good-to-me "Texasville." Once, in '89, tryin' to get to the courthouse for some story I was workin' on, I drove by as they were filming an outdoor scene for "Texasville" with Cybill Shepherd and Jeff Bridges. Major cool.
At the store, I will check out the American Indian, Oklahoma, Texas and Southwest sections, as usual, give a glance to the Civil War-era stuff, somewhat knowingly (now) peruse anything on the Reformation and late medieval-early modern Europe, and cap it with a stroll down the aisle with 19th-century American literature.
A finer way to spend the day I cannot imagine.
--ER
