Books,Books,Books In Texas

Larry Mc Murtry's Amazing Archer City Bookstores

Archer City, Texas is so small that those passing through wouldn't expect to find a single bookstore but there are five Booked Up locations scattered through the tiny business district of this west Texas community. Each of the bookstores overflows with books shelved from floor to ceiling. In Number One, valuable and rare volumes share the space with a large, well fed cat that helps provide comfortable ambiance. Number One is the single location with a clerk on duty. In stores Two through Five, it's a system of trust. Each of those stores is unlocked daily and customers can browse to their heart's content. When you've selected your purchases, return to Number One to pay.

Why does a small town offer so many book shops? Because Archer City is the home of Pulitzer Prize winning author Larry Mc Murtry and these are his stores. Reader as well as writer, Mc Murtry collected the books over many years. His first retail outlet in Washington DC closed just before he returned to his native Texas but when he moved home, the books came too. He soon opened Booked Up in his hometown and as the books were unpacked, the locations grew from one to five. And, although there are several other viable businesses operating in Archer City, Booked Up dominates the downtown district.

Archer City often gives visitors a strange sense of deja vous. If you watched The Last Picture Show or Texasville, Hollywood movies made from some of McMurtry's novels, you've seen Archer City. Called Thalia in fiction, Archer City remains much as it first appeared in The Last Picture Show made in the late 1960's. The picture show - or movie theater - remains but it is only a shell. The front walls and marquee are in place but the rest is long removed save for a stage where occasionally local talent performs.