The famous and wealthy author Larry McMurtry also owns one of the largest used bookstores in the country – Booked Up – a mecca for book lovers without question.  He has decided to downsize, which is of course making the news.  We clean out by going to the Choo Choo Swapmeet, he has an auction of thousands of titles and makes national headlines. 

I just have to share two things from the Booked Up website, maybe East Side Books and Booked Up  really have a few things in common!  First from the Frequently Asked Questions:

I also want to share McMurtry’s explanation for the clean out:

TO OUR GUESTS:

The several hundred thousand books that we are putting in play constitute a kind of anthology of American bookshops past.  In our forty-one years as booksellers we have bought twenty six bookshops and some two hundred personal libraries, some humble, some grand.

So why push them out?

Because we believe that in the book world migration is healthy:  old pages await new eyes.  Yesterday in Lubbock, Texas I found a copy of Sons and Lovers in the oil-cloth Modern Library with my bookplate in it.  Twenty eight thousand volumes have my bookplate in them;  they reside in my big house in Archer City, and yet this one strayed.  How it got to Lubbock I’ll likely never know.  It’s home again now;  but hundreds of thousands of its cousins will be flooding into the great river of books that delights and refreshes.  Good reading and good luck!

     Larry McMurtry

In the book world, migration is healthy.  Old pages await new eyes.  We have a few creatively shelved old pages awaiting new eyes, come find some for your library!