Recycled Books in Denton, Texas – Gotta love the view!

A few weeks ago, my fiance and I hopped in the car for a spontaneous, let’s-just-get-out-of-the-house kind of trip. We had no particular agenda, but north seemed a good direction, which is how we wound up in Denton, Texas on a chilly Sunday afternoon.

The first thing we discovered about Denton is that Sundays are the worst day of the week to visit. Nearly all the shops and museums were closed. Luckily, there was a fabulous used bookstore open, a place called Recycled Books.

I love any bookstore, but funky, used bookstores are my favorites. The moment I stepped inside Recycled Books, I caught a whiff of used books (love that smell!), saw a huge room crammed with well-labeled sections of books, and knew we had stumbled upon a gem.

At that point, I didn’t even realize that there was a massive basement to explore, but I was still quite impressed. All in all, Recycled Books is 17,000 square feet of used book deliciousness. It more than made up for visiting Denton on a Sunday.

I even learned a new word while strolling through Recycled Books: Texana. According to The Big Apple (a cool etymology site) this is a term used to describe all things Texan. In fact, Texana, Texiana and Texicana can all be used, but Texana is the most popular word these days. I’m a bit partial to the word, Texicana, myself. Kinda makes me wonder how I can get the words I coined, Texcentric and Texcentricity, to catch on?

In any case, I look forward to visiting Denton again. For one thing, it’s the home of Shelly Tucker, a professional storyteller who blogs over at This Eclectic Life. She is one of those witty, wonderful, wise women I bumped into on the internet and would like to meet IRL someday.