Larry McMurtry: *Books* nerd.

Shamans, magic, and witchcraft are deep in my mind as I hack away at my current project. And like all things that you commit most of your waking brainpower to, you start noticing whenever you even catch a hint of that thing [magic, shamans, witchcraft].

For example, in Larry McMurtry's memoir, Books.

Here are some pages out of Books. Ostensibly a memoir where you learn about a Pulitzer Prize Winner's deep well of life through the books they loved. Instead, it comes together like you're sitting out front a shit-kicking bar with 110 degree heat, drinking Shiner Bock and bullshitting about some good books.

Scatological Rites? That sounds fantastic, and something I don't know anything about when it comes to shamanism or witchcraft. (I'm sure there's a whole wing of Harry Potter fanfic about it).

But anyway, as many of the stories in Books, McMurtry talks about a book (or rather around it), or an author and then doesn't dive into its significance for him. It turned out he couldn't get ahold of it, got outbid. Much of Books is a story of books he did and didn't get to buy and sell. I mean, yeah, cool, but as a writer and reader, I thought he would talk about the life-changing reading experiences that came through the books that poured into his head and exploded into unicorn rainbows, dusty western tracks, the voices of Texas.

But no, instead, it's like hanging out on a porch, getting drunk, talking books. He does it so well that I finished it over a couple of evenings. And picked up Literary Life.

Anyways, here's a digital version of Scatological Rites of All Nations by John Gregory Bourke. I'll seek a cheap physical copy, but read it on Kindle until I find one. If you've read this thing, tell me about it. If Bourke's using Rites in the title, it has got to be magical, right?