Recycled Books Bookstore in Denton, Texas, is one of my favorite used bookstores.
When we travel, we love to stop at bookstores, especially used bookstores. One of my goals for 2020 was to highlight bookstores both in our area and as we traveled. I had planned to take pictures, make notes, and share them all with you.
But then 2020 happened.
We didn’t travel. Not locally or for vacation. I think I have been in one bookstore since last March, and it was a quick trip to pick up books for my daughter before she had surgery. Besides that, my book shopping has all been done online.
I miss bookstores!! And I know that I am not the only one.
Last January, as in January 2020, my husband and I visited Texas for a few days. When we realized that we were going to be near Recycled Books in Denton, Texas, we knew that we needed to take time to stop.
My trip to Recycled books was going to be my first post where I highlighted a bookstore. I took pictures, bought books, and spent time talking to employees.
I loved visiting Recycled Books and wanted to share all about it with you.
But when life changed last March and so much was shut down, it just didn’t seem like a good time to share about a weekend trip away and a trip to a used bookstore.
I had planned to share it later in the year, but the year didn’t get a lot better.
It is now 2021 and although things are not back to normal, it feels like maybe there is an end in sight. Hopefully, we will all be back to traveling and visiting bookstores soon.
I am hopeful that we will be traveling to bookstores again soon. I want to help promote and support businesses and bookstores, so I decided it was time to share about my trip to Recycled Books in Denton, Texas.
I plan to share a few local to me bookstores soon. And as we get back to traveling later this year, I will continue to share bookstores, both new and used. It is a small way that I can help promote small businesses.
Recycled Books Bookstore
Recycled Books is located in a historic building in downtown Denton, Texas. They have been buying and selling used books since 1983.
They claim to have a half-million books, and I believe it. The store is packed from top to bottom with one of the best-used book selections I have seen.
The store contains three floors all filled with used books, records, and CDs. And although they do sell records and CDs, books are the mainstay of the store.
Nonfiction and History Books
Recycled Books in Denton, Texas has all kinds of books. The mystery section was huge, as was the general fiction and sci-fi. They also had a Christian book section that was quite large, but it was the nonfiction and history section that impressed us the most.
The whole downstairs is basically all history. They have one of the largest state history sections that I have seen. It was well organized and divided into sections, so it was easy to find a book about a state or topic of American history.
They also have a large world history section that included all kinds of books many of which I had never seen before.
Old West Books
Recycled Books is located in Texas, so it was no surprise that they had a huge section on the history of Texas.
What did surprise me was the huge section of books about the old west. I am not sure I have seen an old west book section quite like the one at Recycled Books. They had newer books, but they also had a ton of older books and sets of books.
If you want to learn about the old west or cowboys or Texas history you need to make a trip to Recycled Books.
The Books We Bought at Recycled Books
We ended up with two books of books. Yes, two boxes. We drove to Texas so we had plenty of room to take home books.
Between the books I wanted, my husband wanted, and the few books we bought for our kids, we left Recycled books with a lot of books.
I bought a few fiction books. I also got some books in a couple of mystery series that I am trying to complete. But the majority of the book we bought was nonfiction and history.
I wish I had gotten a picture of the books we bought, but as soon as I got them home everyone started going through them. In the future, I will be sure to get a picture before I let anyone take any.
Visit Recycled Books
If you love bookstores, especially used bookstores, and are in the Dallas area, I think you will enjoy Recycled Books in Denton, Texas.
Thanks for sharing about this bookstore. My family loves road-tripping and finding great thrift, vintage, and used book/record stores. Because we are from Oklahoma too, the Dallas area is a fairly common trip for us.
Once on a trip east we stopped in Lexington, KY for lunch and out the window of the restaurant I spied a sign that pointed to a bookstore down a mysterious (but not scary) alley. I quickly ordered and told my family to call me when the food came and went to check it out. I loved that store, Black Swan Books, so much that later on another trip that direction we stayed in Lexington just so we could shop at the bookstore for a long time, as well as visiting several other neat small businesses in the neighborhood.
I hope that you have a chance to visit it next time you go to Dallas. It is a fun bookstore. We like to visit Half Price books in Texas too. I have been to the ones in OKC, but the few I have been to in Texas have been quite a bit larger than the OKC ones.
I have never been to KY, but that sounds like a great bookstore! I might have to eventually do a post about the bookstores readers recommend. That would fun list!
How fun…this is only about 37 minutes from where my daughter is living in Texas…maybe someday on a visit I’ll have to go there.
A bookstore is always a fun place to visit when you travel! Half Price Books is another fun used bookstore with locations all over Texas.