We love to visit bookstores when traveling and on a recent trip to Colorado, we visited the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver.
We spent most of our time outdoors, hiking, but we did manage to fit in trips to two different bookstores.
Since we love to support bookstores, especially independent bookstores, it is always fun to share about the stores we visit.
I have heard about the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver but did not know a lot about it. I knew I wanted to visit a bookstore or two on our trip, but I hadn’t done a lot of research into which ones I wanted to go to.
We stayed in Denver, so I just did a quick search of bookstores. Several Tattered Cover locations came up. I did not realize that Tattered Cover had so many stores.
I had no idea which location was the best one or biggest one to go to, so I just picked the closest one to where we were staying, which was the Colfax location. It wasn’t exactly close, but it was the closest.
It ended up being a great choice. We loved the bookstore.
The building is an old but beautiful, building. Although we went in what I think was the back entrance, by the parking lot, so I did not get a good picture of the building.
The location we went to is an old building. It is not new and fancy. But I didn’t mind the old part of the building and bookstore, because many bookstores are in older buildings.
The bookstore was a lot larger than I expected and they had a lot more books than I thought they would have. I thought they had a great selection.
The books are a mix of new and used books. The staff was friendly and there were quite a few staff members in various locations available for help.
I will say that it wasn’t the cleanest bookstore that I have been in. The floors were in desperate need of vacuuming and we won’t talk about how bad the bathroom was.
The great selection of books more than made up for that though.
Every bookstore has a personality. Some carry mainly new and popular books. Some carry a ton of fiction or a lot of kids’ books.
Tattered Covers had a good mix, but they seemed to focus more on unusual or lesser-known books. I felt like the new release selection was actually kind of small for the size of the bookstore. There was a new release book that I was interested in looking at and they didn’t have it.
However, I don’t read a lot of new releases, so the small new release section was not a big deal to my husband and me.
We love finding books that we have never heard of or books that people have forgotten about because they are older releases.
The fiction section was huge. They had a lot of books I had heard of, but also a lot of fiction books that I did not know about.
I also loved that they had a lot of older releases by popular authors. So instead of having only the latest book by an author, they seemed to have a lot of backlist books.
I love to read memoirs and the memoir section had quite a few books, both newer and older ones, that I had never seen before.
The true crime and history sections were also well stocked.
The young adult and kids section was downstairs, it was a bit dark and out of the way from the rest of the bookstore, but it looked like they had a good selection.
The children’s area was busy so I did not take any pictures, but it was quite large.
If you enjoy visiting bookstores and are ever in the Denver area, I think you would enjoy a trip to Tattered Cover Book Store.
If you have been or live in the area I would love to know what location is your favorite? Or what bookstores we need to visit next time we are in Denver.
What We Bought
Now for the books that we bought at Tattered Cover Book Store.
Both my husband and I left with several books, plus I bought two books for my daughter that I didn’t get a picture of.
I never know what books my husband is going to find. He loves to read nonfiction science, medicine, theology, and history especially Native American history.
I had not heard of any of the books in his stack, although none of them surprised me. His books totally reflect the type of books he likes to read. They were all nonfiction books that were totally different from those I read.
Books My Husband Bought
The Facemaker by Lindsey Fitzharris is about a plastic surgeon who worked to repair soldiers who were disfigured during WWI. It is the story of the surgeon, but also the soldiers who’s lives where changed by the war. This one mixes medicine and history so I can totally see why he bought this one. I might actually read this one if it isn’t too full of gory details. I will wait to get his review before I give it a try.
Yellow Bird by Sierra Crane Murdoch is about a murder on an Indian reservation in North Dakota. This one is true crime mixed with Native American history and it is another one I can totally see him enjoying.
The Face of Hunger by Brian Conner, M.D. is another one that mixes medicine and history. Brian Conner shares his story of being a Christian Missionary doctor in Ethiopia.
Narrative of Sojourner Truth is exactly what it sounds like. Originally published in 1850, Sojourner Truth shared her story. She was born a slave, was sold three times, and eventually walked to freedom.
Now for my stack, which looks totally different than my husband’s, but is a good reflection of what I like to read.
James Dyson an Inventor’s Life is James Dyson’s memoir. It is about his life and how he built Dyson. This is a newer release that I knew nothing about. I love memoirs and I love books about business, so this was a must buy for me.
Diamond Doris by Zelda Lockhart was another must buy for me. I love to read true crime books, especially non-murder true crime and I had never heard of this one. It is another example of the type of lesser known books that Tattered Cover Book Store had.
The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig is a book that I kind of knew about. I read a nonfiction book by Ivan Doig about growing up in Montana for my nonfiction books for every state challenge. I knew he had written fiction, but had not paid much attention to it. Tattered Cover had several of his books, so I decided to pick one up to try. It looks like a book that I will enjoy.