Larry Mcmurtry

They have the couple's habit of finishing each other's sentences, a habit they have now turned into a novel. "The collaboration, from the point of view of the writing, has always been very easy," says Larry McMurtry, one of America's most celebrated authors, slurping a Dr Pepper. "It's only when we've edged out into the public arena, when something gets published and our names show up in the trades, that it wasn't . . . " " . . . Easy," adds Diana Ossana, one of America's most celebrated, um, former legal secretaries?

Snow carvers from around the world will call North Lake Tahoe home Feb. 8-13, for the first-ever Carve Tahoe competition. For details, click here www.carvetahoe.com . . . . Writing workshops, daily readings and other gatherings by screenwriters, songwriters, playwrights and poets will be featured at the Ojai WordFest, April 6-13. Info: www.ojaivisitors.com . . . . Look for lots of ski deals, now until Christmas. Big Bear's midweek lift and lodging packages start as low as $69 per person per night, double occupancy.

In 1941, the visionary German dramatist and poet, Bertolt Brecht, newly arrived in Los Angeles, where he hoped to make his fortune as a screenwriter, wrote these lines: Every morning, to earn my bread, I go to the market, where lies are bought. Hopefully I join the ranks of the sellers. " Hollywood: A Third Memoir" is the distinguished writer Larry McMurtry's delightfully episodic account of his long, profitable and generally rather enjoyable engagement with the movie industry — or, to borrow Brecht's phrase, his time among the sellers.

News that Tales of the Lonesome Pine bookshop in Virginia is looking for a bookstore-sitter this fall has been embraced by everyone from Jacket Copy to NPR as a charming idea. In exchange for room and board, the sitter gets a rustic setting, a couple of pets to care for and a bookstore to watch over. Who wouldn't want to give it a try? Scott Brown, for one. He's one of the owners of Eureka Books , an antiquarian bookstore in Eureka, Calif. He slams the idea of leaving a bookstore in the hands of an unpaid volunteer.

Larry McMurtry is known for writing books (and screenplays), but he is also a bookseller. For many years, McMurtry has collected and sold rare books from the town of Archer City, Texas. He has bookstores filled with hundreds of thousands of rare, antiquarian and collectible books. Friday, they go on sale. Most of them, anyway: McMurtry is auctioning the contents of several stores, save one . And it's keeping 150,000 books in stock. In addition to being a significant book collector and bookseller, McMurtry has a stunning publishing record and screenwriting career.

Last week, Larry McMurtry's career as a book dealer took center stage. McMurtry is, of course, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Lonesome Dove" and dozens of other novels, including "The Last Picture Show," "Texasville" and "Terms of Endearment. " He's also familiar with Hollywood -- many of his books have been successfully adapted to film and in 2006, he won an Oscar for co-writing the screenplay of "Brokeback Mountain. " All that was set aside as McMurtry, who's been selling collectible books for 55 years, put 300,000 of them up for sale.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry and his collaborator Diana Ossana are living pretty much in a "Lonesome Dove" world these days. "Larry McMurtry's Streets of Laredo," the five-hour miniseries based on his 1993 sequel to "Lonesome Dove," airs Sunday and Tuesday on CBS. McMurtry and Ossana penned the screenplay based on his novel and also are executive producers.

Larry McMurtry, whose novels-into-films include "Hud," "The Last Picture Show," "Leaving Cheyenne" (filmed by Sidney Lumet as "Lovin' Molly") and "Terms of Endearment," knows his way around Hollywood and is not much enchanted by what he sees. "With rare exceptions," he says in an introduction to "Film Flam," "the pictures coming out of Hollywood today are the last resorts of the gutless. In my opinion, a little film flam is all such an industry deserves."

For a writer whose novels are often set under big Western skies and populated with ranchers and gunslingers, Larry McMurtry is strikingly bookish. Here is a man who, any day, would rather be nosing through dusty volumes than kicking sod on the prairie. Although he is the son of a West Texas rancher, McMurtry, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning epic "Lonesome Dove" was serialized in four parts on CBS-TV starting last Sunday, confessed one night recently that he never quite got the hang of cowpoking.

There's much about the Old West and the Western novel that should stay dead and gone: the gun-slinging violence, the racism and sexism (all so predictable and stereotyped when "novelized"), the cussing and carousing--all the qualities that made the West so wild. But the West (old and new), as everyone knows, is a big place and its telling, remembering and imagining take many forms--in fiction and in fact.

Last week, Larry McMurtry's career as a book dealer took center stage. McMurtry is, of course, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Lonesome Dove" and dozens of other novels, including "The Last Picture Show," "Texasville" and "Terms of Endearment. " He's also familiar with Hollywood -- many of his books have been successfully adapted to film and in 2006, he won an Oscar for co-writing the screenplay of "Brokeback Mountain. " All that was set aside as McMurtry, who's been selling collectible books for 55 years, put 300,000 of them up for sale.

On Monday, the good folks at Goodreads announced they'd reached a milestone: 10 million registered users.  "We've come a long way since Elizabeth and I built Goodreads from our living room, motivated by the belief that there was a better way to discover and discuss good books - and that we could build it," wrote founder Otis Chandler on the Goodreads blog. When Goodreads launched in January 2007 as a social networking site for book lovers, it was the new kid on the block. Another social reading site, LibraryThing, was performing a similar service, allowing people to catalog their libraries online and share ideas around books.

Larry McMurtry is known for writing books (and screenplays), but he is also a bookseller. For many years, McMurtry has collected and sold rare books from the town of Archer City, Texas. He has bookstores filled with hundreds of thousands of rare, antiquarian and collectible books. Friday, they go on sale. Most of them, anyway: McMurtry is auctioning the contents of several stores, save one . And it's keeping 150,000 books in stock. In addition to being a significant book collector and bookseller, McMurtry has a stunning publishing record and screenwriting career.

Aleph A Novel Paulo Coelho Alfred A. Knopf, $24.95 A crisis of faith prompts a man to begin a journey of self-discovery from Africa to Asia. The Angel Esmeralda Nine Stories Don DeLillo Scribner, $24 The first collection of short stories from a defining American voice in contemporary fiction. The Art of Fielding A Novel Chad Harbach Little, Brown, $25.99 The complicated nature of relationships revolving around a gifted college baseball player.

Jon Bon Jovi's "pay-what-you-can" charity restaurant in New Jersey is open for business. The rocker said Wednesday that Soul Kitchen in Red Bank is designed to help the hungry without the stigma of a soup kitchen. There are no prices on the menu. Diners pay whatever they're able to. Those without money can still eat provided they're willing to work in the restaurant or perform some community service. The restaurant operates out of a former auto body shop near the Red Bank, N.J., train station.

Long, Last, Happy New and Selected Stories Barry Hannah Grove Press: 462 pp., $27.50 I've never had much use for the concept of the "writer's writer. " It's a backhanded compliment, a way of suggesting that an author is too obscure, weird, nuanced or flat-out inaccessible to appeal to a general readership. Writer's writers also rarely end up well: They burn out and work the lecture circuit or turn to drugs and drink. Malcolm Lowry never published another book during his lifetime after the novel "Under the Volcano" appeared in 1947.

IN his funky 2000 celebration of the American highway, "Roads," Larry McMurtry, the consummate Texan, writes of Los Angeles with the affectionate exasperation of a native. "The freeways of Los Angeles have been my Ganges; for forty years I have been making my way up and down them, stalled as often as the Newbys were on the holy river."

Hollywood A Third Memoir Larry McMurtry Simon & Schuster: 146 pp., $24

In 1941, the visionary German dramatist and poet, Bertolt Brecht, newly arrived in Los Angeles, where he hoped to make his fortune as a screenwriter, wrote these lines: Every morning, to earn my bread, I go to the market, where lies are bought. Hopefully I join the ranks of the sellers. " Hollywood: A Third Memoir" is the distinguished writer Larry McMurtry's delightfully episodic account of his long, profitable and generally rather enjoyable engagement with the movie industry — or, to borrow Brecht's phrase, his time among the sellers.