Volume 55, Number 13 · August 14, 2008
The Treasure Hunter
By Michael Dirda
Books: A Memoir
by Larry McMurtry
Simon and Schuster, 259 pp., $24.00
Memoirs are inherently wistful, but Larry McMurtry's reminiscences of his life with books—not as a novelist but as a reader, book scout, and bookstore owner—are especially valedictory. Nearly every page sounds a note of farewell, of stoic, weary resignation, of time running out. While McMurtry's voice remains modest, low-key, and immensely sympathetic, no amount of charm can disguise a pervasive melancholy in his pages. As he says, 'A bookman's love of books is a love of books, not merely of the information in them.' But, he fears, the age of eagerly turned pages is passing:
Review, 3885 words
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