“The problem with large bookstores is that they contain usually a lot of junk. My focus as a bookseller is to keep the junk out. Because good books don’t pull bad books up, bad books pull good books down.”
-From a brief interview with McMurtry by Julie Riggot for the Los Angeles Downtown News.
McMurtry will receive the Los Angeles Public Library Literary Award later this week.
LA City Librarian Fontayne Holmes says of McMurtry “He really is such a book person in every single meaning of the word, as a bookstore owner, as a book collector, as a writer and as an incredible reader of literature”
Ironically enough, McMurtry will receive the honor on the same day that the venerable LA bookstore Dutton’s closes its doors for good.