My friend
Jim Crace has a new novel coming out five days from now,
All That Follows. It's set, in part, right here in Austin, Texas, and one of the crucial scenes takes place at the Texas Book Festival. When Jim was researching the book, he stayed with me for a week, and from now on, whatever the fate of my own books or my reputation as an author, I can lay indisputable claim to one signal literary accomplishment: I introduced the award-winning author of
Gift of Stones,
Quarantine,
Being Dead, and
The Pesthouse to Texas barbecue.
The book is already out in Britain, but in the meantime, as we wait for it to arrive here, you can
read this review, check out
a characteristically charming interview with Jim, and
peruse the catalog of his archives at the Ransom Center. I leave you with the man himself, reading aloud from the opening pages of
All That Follows, while seated deep in the stacks of the Ransom Center. I don't believe they've archived Jim himself, but you never know; the Ransom Center folks are nothing if not thorough.
Just this morning, driving down the Drag in Austin, I saw that Intellectual Property, the one remaining general interest bookstore within walking distance of the University of Texas, is closing. Turns out their last day is March 15, and right now they're selling off their complete stock at 50% off. It's not quite an independent—it's owned by Follett's, the textbook store chain—and it's not quite the loss that the closing of Shaman Drum would be, but it's another sign of doom for the old way of selling books.
When I first moved to Austin in the mid-90s, there were at least two general interest bookshops with a scholarly bent across the street from UT. One was called Europa and I was only in it once before it went out of business, and the other was the trade book department of the University Co-op, which was, as I recall, really first rate. Somewhere along the way the the Co-op decided not to sell trade books anymore, which was a real shame, and they sold or leased half of their space to Barnes and Noble, which ran a store there for a few years before it, too, went out of business. A number of professors and other folks at UT lobbied the university to help underwrite a bookstore along the Drag, and Intellectual Property was the result of a deal between UT and Follett's.
It was a pretty good store, if not a great one. For one thing, their shelving was ambitious but idiosyncratic: they had, for example, a classical studies section and a section, clear across the store, for Greek and Roman history, so that if you were looking for, say, a translation of Livy, you had to be sure to check both places. For another thing (he said shamelessly), they never stocked any of my books, despite my asking them to, twice.
But even so, it's a shame to see it go. Perhaps the Co-op will go back into the trade book business, but I doubt it. They seem perfectly content to sell Longhorn paraphernalia, electronics, and textbooks.
An Addendum, 3/1/09: In today's Austin American-Statesman, the paper's excellent books editor, Jeff Salamon, has a comprehensive history of Intellectual Property and a very shrewd and knowledgeable take on why it failed. Check it out.
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