In one of the more unlikely book-related pairings, Chip Gaines, the star, with his wife, Joanna Gaines, of the cable home improvement show Fixer Upper, the Magnolia Network and head of a lifestyle/entertainment empire centered in Waco, Texas, has bought Booked Up, the bookstore founded by the late Larry McMurtry, author of Lonesome Dove, The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment and other modern classics.
Last November, Gaines quietly purchased the two buildings and stock of Booked Up, Archer City, Tex., from Khristal Collins, Booked Up's longtime manager who inherited the store after McMurtry's death in 2021. Collins has kept the name Booked Up, using it for an online store she founded last week.
The Booked Up sale was noted in a local paper and gotten widespread coverage following a CNN story last week. CNN noted that although Gaines was raised in Albuquerque, N.Mex., he has a strong connection to Archer City: his parents grew up there and he often spent summers with his grandfather in Archer City. A spokesperson for Gaines told CNN: "Chip's connection to Archer City traces back to his parents and grandparents, who grew up there. He loves this community and has been a big fan of Larry McMurtry for years. Chip is honored and excited to preserve this incredible book collection with the respect it deserves." The spokesperson offered no details about Gaines's plans for the bookstore and its stock.
McMurtry founded Booked Up in 1987 in his hometown as a passion project, and it quickly became a beloved destination for McMurtry fans and book lovers of all kinds.
Gaines has a goofy, excitable persona on Fixer Upper, a marketing and entrepreneurial background and published several books: No Pains, No Gaines: The Good Stuff Doesn't Come Easy; Capital Gaines: Smart Things I Learned Doing Stupid Stuff; and, with his wife, The Magnolia Story (all published by Thomas Nelson).
Archer City residents hope Booked Up opens again, and that Gaines might work some of the same kind of magic on hardscrabble Archer City that he and his wife have done with Waco, where their Magnolia Market at the Silos draws more than a million visitors a year. But for now, Gaines's intentions are unknown.
As Texas Monthly commented: "Whether Gaines lines the store's walls with shiplap (though true heads know that's Joanna's predilection, not Chip's) and starts selling croissants out the window, or whether he preserves every sacred layer of dust and leaves the books to sit, Booked Up was doomed to look and feel different without McMurtry behind it."