After we got done with the drive (details below) we rolled into the center of Archer City, took a left and arrived at our destination in little more than a block. Archer City is a tiny town. I think the”welcome to” sign set the population at 1,851 but I wonder just how much of Archer County that includes. As you can see here, crossing the main drag posed about as much risk to life and limb as brushing your teeth. To really appreciate a book store like Booked Up you have to learn at least a little about Larry McMurtry.
McMurtry is a prolific author that many people in my generation and younger have probably not heard much about. A few of his more famous works resulted in feature films and mini-series like Terms of Endearment, The Last Picture Show and Lonesome Dove among others. McMurtry grew up in Archer City and after achieving fame and fortune returned for a time to open Booked Up. You get the idea from reading the signs posted about that he has become mostly an absentee landlord in recent years, spending significantly less time there than he once did. Still, the place has his imprint all over it. There are framed items from friends and family lying about, type-up and hand-annotated signs and notes here and there and even some CDs for sale by his son James. It’s the same feeling you get visiting the home of a grandparent. There’s a little bit of their lives and those of their loved ones scattered all over the place.
Some of the more remarkable things about Booked Up? First, it dominates the town. There are four buildings in all, and though a couple look relatively small from outside that is deceiving. They are quite large inside and the inventory is enormous. Second, the place is run on the honor system – only building number one is staffed. If you find something you like in the other three you walk it down to number one and pay there. Third, the antiquity and diversity of the books is something else. In the older collections you routinely see books on virtually every topic printed in the mid to early 1800s. Finally, it’s just plain overwhelming. The breadth of what you behold is sharply enhanced by McMurtry’s admittedly “whimsical” way of organizing the titles.
That whimsy is particularly evident in the lobby of building one where the really rare and signed copies are kept. I spent two hours in there crawling over every shelf. After about 30 minutes of browsing it hits you – you could spend an entire lifetime from dawn to dusk reading and scarcely make a dent in the place. In fact, you could spend days and days wandering the buildings and noting carefully what you found before you even got a solid feel for the inventory.
Whether it’s the product of genius, madness or detachment, McMurtry has really hit on something here. By not indexing, organizing or computerizing his collection in any way you are forced to take in the vastness of it all. You browse across things you would never set out to find, see things you would never guess existed, and learn things you would be lessened for not knowing.
Barnes & Noble it ain’t.
