Driving into the dusty town of Archer City in 115-degree north Texas heat is akin to a religious experience for lovers of Larry McMurtry's fiction--for the ranchers, shop owners and oil men of Archer County, it is perhaps less so. But those who devoured descriptions of "Thalia" or "Anarene" in McMurtrys The Last Picture Show, Texasville or Duane's Depressed will recognize the square, the theater and the iconic stoplight, which should, for all intents and purposes, be a stop sign since it's only a blinking red light.
Not described within McMurtry's fiction are four large buildings with simple signs bearing the name "Booked Up Inc." and numbered 1-4. Boasting a collection of more than 300,000 used books, Booked Up is an oasis for those who love books--old-fashioned printed books on all kinds of subjects. Patrons can find first editions of books by Nabokov, Naipul and Beatrix Potter as well as pamphlets detailing the minutiae of raising cattle, 19th century French fiction and an entire room dedicated to poetry.
In jeans and leather suspenders, McMurtry is often in the showroom reading the newspaper or in one of the warehouses organizing and pricing books. He cuts an austere figure. "I like the physical activity of playing with books," he said when asked why he created this massive collection. "If you don't like handling books, I don't know why you'd be in the business."
If anyone doubts that McMurtry is attached to books, consider that he has a personal collection of more than 26,000 books divided between a two-story carriage house and his main ranch house, too. He also loves bookstores, and notes with regret that 99% of all the bookstores he's visited in his life are now closed. McMurtry himself isn't a stranger to bookstore closings. The first "Booked Up" launched in D.C. (Georgetown), then reappeared in Dallas, Houston and Tucson. He ended up in Archer City for one reason only, he said: the low rent.
In the same way that McMurtry captures the disappearing pastoral lifestyle of the West, McMurtry has preserved an old style of bookselling: one can walk right from the Dairy Queen (past the Hellcat Carwash and the Dollar General) and into Booked Up #2, to find an advanced reader copy of an early Allen Ginsberg collection. To pay for it, one must take the book to Booked Up #1, which has the only cash register in all four buildings.
There are, in fact, no security measures whatsoever. This is made obvious by signs reading: "If you are unable to locate an employee in this building, please feel free to wander about yelling 'yoo-hoo' and peering into storage rooms until completely frustrated. Then proceed to building one where you will find patronizing employees busy at work or sitting around drinking coffee and laughing at you. Thank you."
Khristal Collins, an 18-year employee at Booked Up who started working at the store when she was in high school, told me that theft isn't a problem, which is not surprising. Booked Up patrons are a self-selecting crowd comprised of a few of the 1,834 citizens of Archer City looking for a quick read, international buyers, collectors from New York City and a few citizens of Wichita Falls (the closest city with a Starbucks). "People come from all over," McMurtry said. "We had our first Chinese customers come to look at our collection of Chinese Art & History Books."
Despite treasures spanning many different genres it is amazing that, for the most part, McMurtry inspects and prices most of the books himself. He relishes the process, he said, often flying across the country to inspect a collection that has come on the market. "That's the fun of being in the book business, the childish thrill of the Easter egg hunt."
The results are evident in the store's four warehouses of used books. Collectors can find hidden gems (like the signed copy of John Knowles's Indian Summer I found three years ago for $5), drastically discounted hardcover fiction as well as childhood favorites that are no longer in print. For the niche reader, Booked Up contains sections on such subjects as Birds, African American Studies, African Studies, Texana, the Occult and Western Pulp Fiction. For those who can visit, it's worth going to Archer City, where the heat has beaten progress into submission and the expansion of the universe has slowed to a crawl. Just fly to Dallas and drive about 140 miles northwest. If not, take the modern approach and check out some of the store's holdings online. --Paul Samuelson
Samuelson is a freelance writer and publicist working at Planned TV Arts in New York City. He recently moved there from Chicago, where he worked at Sourcebooks and helped launch the YA imprint Sourcebooks Fire.