The novelist-turned-antiquarian-bookseller traces his life from a bookless Texas ranch childhood through decades of scouting, buying, and dealing rare books at his Georgetown and Archer City shops, Booked Up.
Books mentioned in Books: A Memoir (39)
Tent Life in Siberia by George Kennan: “the book that introduced me to the pleasures of inspired travel writing was called Tent Life in Siberia, by George Kennan”
Ulysses by James Joyce: “Probably its most daring act was to publish several installments of James Joyce's Ulysses”
Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence: “Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, a fifty-thousand-dollar book these days”
Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin: “I got a nice copy of James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain”
Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie: “Robert Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra, and I have been reading about the two world wars ever since”
The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman: “Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August and Robert Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra”
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler: “There's a bookshop in Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, and it is also in the movie”
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway: “the famous 'stoppped' on page 81, line 26, of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises”
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry: “the ultimate source of Gus and Call, in Lonesome Dove”
The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry: “a novelist whose books make excellent movies—Hud, The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment, Lonesome Dove”
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: “For big-ticket books such as The Maltese Falcon, The Great Gatsby, or The Sound and the Fury”
Terms of Endearment by Larry McMurtry: “a novelist whose books make excellent movies—Hud, The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment, Lonesome Dove”
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner: “For big-ticket books such as The Maltese Falcon, The Great Gatsby, or The Sound and the Fury”
On the Road by Jack Kerouac: “the novel by John Clellon Holmes that preceded On the Road in the chronology of Beatdom”
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: “I've never been able to read either Robinson Crusoe or—the real source of both books—Alexander Selkirk's account”
The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton: “I paid Ted Brown $7.50 for a nice copy of The Anatomy of Melancholy”
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert: “Encouraged, I finally did buy a book, Madame Bovary”
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville: “I picked up a hefty book called The Whale, our old friend Moby-Dick under its English title”
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: “I read the longest book in it, Gone With the Wind”
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff: “A general reader named Helen Hanff tapped these sentiments in 84 Charing Cross Road”
Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey: “its author went on to write Eminent Victorians”
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes: “I did read, early on, some simplified version of Don Quixote, which I could tell...was a different order of book”
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: “bitterness over the treatment of Jude the Obscure caused him to leave fiction and turn to poetry”
Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery: “The much-collected classic Anne of Green Gables”
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett: “For big-ticket books such as The Maltese Falcon, The Great Gatsby, or The Sound and the Fury”
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? by Horace McCoy: “a brilliant copy of Horace McCoy's They Shoot Horses, Don't They?—the famous novel about the marathon dances”
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee: “First on my list was Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, by James Agee with pictures by Walker Evans”
Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton: “we've handled only two indubitably great books: Isaac Newton's Principia mathematica and Goya's Los Desastres de la guerra”
My Ears Are Bent by Joseph Mitchell: “it was a legendary New Yorker book: Joseph Mitchell's My Ears Are Bent: his early journalism”
The House of Rothschild by Niall Ferguson: “of which Niall Ferguson's The House of Rothschild is so far the most comprehensive”
Homage to Mistress Bradstreet by John Berryman: “was herself the subject of a fine tribute: 'Homage to Mistress Bradstreet,' by John Berryman”
Love and Death in the American Novel by Leslie Fiedler: “the critic Leslie Fiedler certainly read it and sprang from it into his Love and Death in the American Novel”
Seduction of the Innocent by Fredric Wertham: “Dr. Wertham...called his well-documented attack on the comic book industry Seduction of the Innocent (1954)”
Cup of Gold by John Steinbeck: “A customer wanted us to secure for him a copy of Cup of Gold, John Steinbeck's first book, a biography of the pirate Henry Morgan”
The Portable Faulkner by William Faulkner: “including Faulkner's copy of The Portable Faulkner, in which Faulkner had written in mild rebuke that Cowley had deprived him”
Foreign Devils on the Silk Road by Peter Hopkirk: “The best known of his seven books is probably the first one, Foreign Devils on the Silk Road”
Enemies of Promise by Cyril Connolly: “I'm using the term Cyril Connolly adopted years ago in Enemies of Promise”