Cadillac Jack: icon of early eBay-ery...

[wri-8727]

...sadly has lost his author, Larry McMurtry, though his spirit lives on through eBay. Oddly enought another game changer also died March 25th - Beverly Cleary. Long live Henry Huggins! (and Ramona, too)

RIP Bev & Larry

[picture*books]

McMurtry thought of himself more as a bookseller than a book writer, see this very good article "Larry McMurtry: The Last Bookseller".

"If you had asked the author Larry McMurtry, who died last week at the age of 84, how he’d want to be remembered, he would not have mentioned writing his novels The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment, and Lonesome Dove or the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain. He’d have told you he was a man who bought and sold books. And that’s putting it mildly: he was obsessed with the physicality of books; not nearly as much with their authors, as he was with their readers and owners."

[picture*books]

About a decade ago McMurtry auctioned off a large portion of his book inventory:

"ARCHER CITY, Texas (AP) – For more than 40 years, award-winning author Larry McMurtry’s Booked Up bookstore has drawn people from all over the world to Archer City.

Beginning Aug. 10, more than 300,000 books from the store’s four buildings will find new homes when McMurtry hosts a two-day auction for two-thirds of his inventory. [...]

It will be one of the largest book auctions to date, and McMurtry said he’s received an enthusiastic response from people in the book business.

McMurtry said a similar sale of about 1 million books will take place on the West Coast in about a year. [...]

The stores will be locked until one week before the sale. Then potential buyers will have the week to preview books before the auction.

Books will be sold in about 1,500 lots of 200 books each.

A selection hand-picked by the author called the “McMurtry 100” will be auctioned off individually. A list of these 100 books is available on the auction house website. A few other single-item lots will be available, including the well-known Goodspeed’s sign."