Best Rare Book Store Santa Clara Near Me

4worldlovers: TIME TO CLEAN OUT YOUR BOOK COLLECTION!!! We are always looking for good, quality books, so if you haven't cleaned out your collection for a while bring them by to us for cash or trade. We are always looking for quality children's books, young adult book, current fiction and classic literature. But we buy in other areas as well: science, math, history, metaphysical, self-help, etc... call us if you have questions.

SCAM ALERT!!!! SCAM ALERT!! We do not buy textbooks over the internet. We do not buy any books from people over the internet. Anyone contacting you via Facebook or any other method online is trying to scam you. They are just using our name to give them legitimacy.

Recycle Bookstore is a general used bookstore with titles in almost every subject area. We buy, sell and trade used books. Since we have been in business for 40 years, we have built a very loyal customer base. This means that people not only buy books from us but they also bring us books consistently. The flow of books coming in means that you always have new books to look at in your section. We have strong sections in science fiction, mystery, literature, art, children's, history, science, gardening and spirituality... and we have quite a few books in other sections as well.

4worldlovers: Bell’s offers a delightful and eclectic combination of new, used, and rare books. While you might find scarce seventeenth century herbals, with botanical woodcuts, printed on handmade linen rag paper; 18th and 19th century medical treatises bound in sheepskin; signed limited editions by Joseph Conrad, Jack London, or Wallace Stegner; and gilt-edged, Moroccan leather bound sets of the works of Charles Dickens, you could also find a number of great children’s classics.


Known for our large holdings in literature and history, Bell’s also stocks a vast array of gardening, art and architecture, cookbooks, vintage technical books, new children’s books, military science, transportation, religion, natural history and much, much more. By far the largest part of the collection, over 150,000 volumes available for browsing, is simply good quality secondhand hardcover or trade paperback books in 500 subject categories. The challenge and the joy has been in changing our inventory to reflect the interests and needs of the surrounding community.

We frequently have customers bring their grandchildren to see where three generations of their family have bought books. Although our regulars have included Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, Newbery Award recipients, bishops, movie stars, senators, international statesmen, and leaders of Silicon Valley industry, the generations of book-loving people of Palo Alto who have walked through our doors day in and day out for eighty-five years, keeping up our spirits, and sharing our enthusiasms, are the ones who have made it possible for the Bell family to keep doing what we love most every day, and for that we are profoundly grateful.


Recent seismically proportioned shifts in the world of bookselling have raised questions about the relevance of brick and mortar bookstores in the environment of Silicon Valley, but, if you, like us, enjoy real books in the real world; holding volumes that feel good, smell good, and are a pleasure to the eye and the hand, then join us joyfully in the knowledge that at Bell’s you can be physically surrounded by the works of the best minds of all time.


In 1935, Herbert Bell, age 24, drove north from Los Angeles with a station wagon full of books, to start The College Book Company with his employer, David Lawyer, a Los Angeles book dealer. They hoped to sell textbooks, as Stanford did not have its own bookstore at the time. The original location was 104 University Avenue, adjacent to the sporting goods shop known as Smith’s on the circle. The idea was to attract the students who came in for bicycle rentals.

In 1936, David Lawyer determined there was no money to be made in selling books to students, and sold out for $2300 to Herbert Bell who said later ” … so he sold it for a song, and I bought it for a song, and I went singing my way into poverty, and lived on hamburgers for some time.”

By 1938 it was called the College Book Shop and had relocated for the first time to 536 Emerson. When the landlord raised the rent, 1944 brought another move (to 408 University) where we participated in book drives for the troops in W.W.II.

In 1948 we moved to 229 Hamilton (The Cardinal Hotel building) where the high ceilings allowed for our signature look; soaring shelves with tall ladders. Finally 536 Emerson Street came up for sale in 1950, and the Bells purchased it. The building, with egg and dart molding on a dark green marble base outside, and pressed tin ceilings and a period staircase and balcony inside, was built in 1924, and designated a Category #2 on the Historic Register by the city of Palo Alto in 1988.

That final move was accomplished with the physical assistance of the head of the German Dept. at Stanford, employee Barbara Worl, and a local policeman who took pity on Bell’s when the landlord threatened legal action if they weren’t out by midnight. They all rolled carts of books around the corner from Hamilton to Emerson late into the night.

4worldlovers: Proceeds from Encore Books on the Square support the ongoing activities of the San Mateo County Historical Association, including the interactive education programs.

4worldlovers: Visit Leigh's Favorite Books for in-store shopping where you can browse a great selection of new and used books. We also offer artisinal greeting cards, silly socks, unique vinyl stickers, and more. Our kids shop, Bookasaurus, is right next door. You'll find a great selection of kids books, gifts and toys for babies up to 6th graders.

Who Killed Jane Stanford? A Gilded Age Tale Of Murder, Deceit Spirits And The Birth Of A University By Richard White

The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything By Matthew Ball

The First Cat In Space Ate Pizza (#1) Graphic Novel By Mac Barnett

The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales Of Madness, Love, And The History Of The World From The By Sam Kean