Very cool. Indie bookstores are the best. Texas you say.
Yes, to meet there would be cool. I'll wear a bandanna across the top my head, doo-rag style, to keep the Texas sun off...
I'm nicely allergic to book dust too, but will suffer for the thrill of it all.
Hmm, I wonder if they have any motels...with air conditioning and a machine for soda pop. Not that I drink soda pop, but it seems fitting.
So McMurtry is dusty? He seems like a good guy...
Cool is a relative term in Texas, ehBeth!
Ya gotta commute up to Wichita Falls for a motel, Osso. I don't think there's anything in Archer City. What has Pacco got on his ears??!
You mean those black lines? those are dark hairs at the very edge of the bottom of his ears.
Hmm, Archer could do with a wee bit of development, perhaps. A Motel for Readers...hmm, with good chairs (Lazy-boys?) and lamps, perhaps even kitchenettes with formica tables. Perhaps a nice pool or two, with lounges and big umbrellas. Um, individual ice chests...
Ah, I see we are off topic for the thread.
Ok, what am I reading. I am reading At Swim Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill, am about 40% into it.
Also off topic, Tartarin, I was talking with JLNobody and he mentioned reading all of Trollope...thought you might enjoy knowing that.
Hi ossobuco.... How are you liking 'At Swim Two Boys'? I wrote down that title last year, but haven't checked it out, yet. Is it set in Ireland?
I'm stopping at the library on the way home tonight, to return 'The Hours' and to see what's on the audio-book shelf....
Hi, PaL, I am liking it, I think. Yes, it is set in Ireland, and - as with my enthusiasm for italy - the decribed locale and time will sometimes keep me going with a writer. Let's say I await further developments.
McMurtry is perverse to have set up shop in Archer City. The locals won't patronize him, and the literate Americans who would love to buy his books (like me) mostly refuse to make such a long trip into such a disgusting state as Texas. He used to have a perfectly good bookstore in Washington, DC. I wish he'd stayed there!
I would sure make a side trip if it would work out at all. I see his point about
real estate values killing great book stores. Yah, he must be a bit eccentric to have made this choice, but I enjoy it.
So Larry, I guess we won't be seeing you at our Texas Gathering, will we?
Hi ossobuco.... Yes, I love to read a book with great descriptions of the locale. I stopped at the library last night, and checked out another audio book.... "The Piano Tuner" by Daniel Mason.... I had never heard of the book, but the description really caught my attention. The story is set in the late 1800's, when a man who loves pianos and music is hired by the British military to go to Burma, to repair and tune a grand piano that was sent to a British military surgeon, stationed in the jungles. I've just barely begun the story.... I loved the scene with the Military Colonel, who is all business and war-stategies and cannot understand why anyone would be interested in music, hires the piano tuner, who totally understands why someone would want to play a piano in the jungles of Burma. Anyway... I think it's going to be a good 'read'. I've always liked books set in that region. I think it started with seeing the movie "A Passage To India".....
Guess not, macsm. At least not until W is out of the White House!
I saw that about the Trollope, Osso! Always appreciate finding others stuck in the same rut I am.
Larry -- McMurtry gets plenty of attention in Archer City. He also does a lot of travelling around, buying. The reason I know anything about McM. was that the appraiser who came list my collection -- which I was giving to a university -- asked whether McM. could have first crack at it. Since I wasn't selling, I said no, but almost said yes just to hang out with the guy! Slightly regret that...
Tartarin, you missed my point. I said that Archer City is a perverse choice of location for McMurtry's books. Who the hell is ever going to go there to inspect them? Texans are not known as the world's most avid readers. And Archer City is not exactly centrally located even by Texas standards.
I don't believe I missed your point, Larry. I politely avoided throwing back at you that many Texans are avid readers, that the place is very popular (and repeatedly featured in magazines and articles), he does of course sell books, and even easterners are welcome!
http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues99/mar99/books.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/McMurtry.html
http://www.bookmagazine.com/archive/issue11/shopwatch.shtml
http://www.canoe.ca/JamBooksFeatures/mcmurty.html
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/4635
http://publishersweekly.reviewsnews.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA166339&publication=publishersweekly
http://www.users.qwest.net/~gbooks6578/Archer%20City.htm
P.S. Can't remember exactly which year it was, but when I lived in Austin it was demonstrated that more books and beer are sold in Austin (per capita) than anywhere else in the US. One statistic proved wrong a year or so later: Princeton NJ sold more beer per capita than anywhere in the US.
Come on, Larry. Venture out of New York City and check out Archer City. It might be a fun place to visit. And GW doesn't hang out there. He's not a reader.
Tartarin, Texas is a big place and Austin, being a university town, is hardly representative. It's like saying that Cambridge is representative of Massachussetts---it isn't. And Lola, I don't live in New York City. Thank God!
Larry McMurtry is from Archer City, hence his running a book store there is hardly so inexplicable. I think it was brave and admirable of him to have the store there, rather than in a more obvious location like NYC, Washington, Seattle or San Francisco. Or even, gasp, Philadelphia...
Hey Lola -- do you get the feeling them coasties think you have to be brave or sub-literate to live in Texas?!!
