Where to buy used books in Bendigo

Updated 9/28/2026

Bendigo's secondhand book trade is tight in the middle and loose at the edges. Book Now in Farmer Lane, Bendigo Book Mark on High Street and the TAFE hall that houses the Bendigo Book Fair sit within a kilometre of one another in the CBD, while the op shops and volunteer counters are spread through Long Gully, Eaglehawk, Golden Square and Kennington, and all of those suburbs sit inside the Bendigo urban area mapped by the national statistics bureau, the ABS. Any entry beyond the CBD names its suburb straight away, and the prices quoted here are in Australian dollars.

The map shifted between March and July 2026. The Lions clubs lost the Garsed Street warehouse that had been their book depot during the autumn, and Book Now reopened on 3 July after a closure, with a Friday-to-Sunday week announced by a neighbouring bookshop. Bendigo Foodshare's fair fills a hall at the TAFE twice a year, and the charity called its Easter 2026 edition record-breaking; between editions it keeps a book stall going at smaller events.

Spot map

The best spots

Used bookstores

Bendigo Book Mark

24 High St, Bendigo VIC 3550

A self-described quirky little secondhand bookshop at the CBD end of High Street, some 600 m west-south-west of the town centre, with shelves stacked to the ceiling and stock running from classics and rare finds through to thrillers and mysteries. Its current website opened with a welcome post dated 24 April 2025, and the contact block at the foot of each page reads open 7 days, 10am to 5pm. An eBay store linked from the site serves buyers who cannot make the trip, and a Facebook post on 6 September 2026 was about reading the latest bookshop-detective novel on the road.

Hours: Daily 10am–5pmWebsite
Rotary club bookshop

Rotary Club of Eaglehawk Bookshop

30 High St, Eaglehawk VIC 3556

In Eaglehawk, which lies 5.2 km to the north-west, the local Rotary club runs a volunteer bookshop in the old O'Brien's Pharmacy building, a site the club's 2024–25 annual report traces back to an 1853 chemist, followed by a photographic studio and a dentist's surgery. The 2025–26 annual report says local history titles are always in demand, that a vintage collection of childhood books is popular and that customer numbers have grown, and it gives Wednesday and Saturday mornings as trading times. Donated DVDs and CDs fill part of the shelves, and the club's online calendar has volunteers rostered on from 10am to noon on Saturday 3, 10 and 17 October 2026.

Hours: Wed, Sat 10am–noonWebsite
Charity book fair (Bendigo Foodshare)

Bendigo Book Fair

MacGillivray Hall, Bendigo TAFE, 128 McCrae St, Bendigo VIC 3550

Bendigo Foodshare's fundraising fair takes over MacGillivray Hall on the Bendigo TAFE campus, and the charity says its two main editions are held each year over the Easter and AFL Grand Final long weekends. Its media release of 9 September 2026 set the spring edition for Friday 25 to Sunday 27 September, with a separate collectibles room, tens of thousands of pre-loved books alongside magazines, records, CDs and DVDs, and a target of more than $30,000 for food relief. The Easter edition had opened on Good Friday, 3 April 2026, with a second room added after its first year at the TAFE, and the Bendigo Times wrote on 2 April 2026 that the rolling stock would sell at rock-bottom prices.

Hours: Last documented: 25–26 September 2026, 9am–5pm; 27 September 2026, 9am–3pmWebsite

All spots by type

Used bookstores

Secondhand and rare bookshop

Book Now

1 Farmer Ln, Bendigo VIC 3550

A secondhand bookshop in a nineteenth-century former wine and spirit merchants' building on Farmer Lane, established in 1984 according to its Instagram profile. An archived 2023 copy of its old website, which no longer loads, counted more than 50,000 used books spread across a mezzanine floor and a cellar, with Australian literature, local histories, art and music as the specialities. On 29 June 2026 Bendigo Book Mark announced on Facebook that Book Now would reopen that Friday, 3 July, trading from 11am to 3pm on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. The shop's own Instagram bio still gives Wednesday to Saturday 10am–5pm plus Sunday 11am–3pm, so confirm before planning a midweek visit.

Op shops & charity shops

Op shop (Lifeline)

Lifeline Loddon Mallee Long Gully Store

8 Wood St, Long Gully VIC 3550

In Long Gully, 2.6 km north-west of the town centre, Lifeline Loddon Mallee's Wood Street store doubles as the charity's main donation hub, with books and media named on its store page. Facebook posts from the store offered cookery, craft, gardening and romance titles on 3 May 2026 and Marvel, Harry Potter and Twisted Tales on 2 June, before a video on 16 June claimed 500 books on hand. Donations go in at the rear door, and the takings help pay for the 13 11 14 call centres Lifeline runs in Bendigo and Mildura.

Hours: Mon–Fri 9:30am–5pm, Sat 10am–2pm; closed SunWebsite
Op shop (Lifeline)

Lifeline Loddon Mallee Strath Village Store

Shop 8, Strath Village, 134 Condon St, Kennington VIC 3550

In Kennington, inside the Strath Village shopping centre roughly 2.7 km towards the south-east, is the second Lifeline Loddon Mallee store, which the charity files under neighbouring Strathdale. Its page promises books, games and children's items, and the shop's Facebook posts back that up with a winter push for books and DVDs on 15 June 2026 and a selection of children's books at $1 each on 19 July. Only small donations are accepted here, with furniture and larger loads redirected to the Long Gully store.

Hours: Mon–Fri 9:30am–5pm, Sat 10am–2pm; closed SunWebsite

Book fairs

Charity book stall

Bendigo Book Fair stall at the Bendigo Community Farmers Market

Bendigo Foodshare Food Hub, 227 Breen St, Golden Square VIC 3555

In Golden Square, a 2.2 km run south-west from the middle of town, the Bendigo Foodshare Food Hub hosts the Bendigo Community Farmers Market, and the charity lists the market among its Book Fair events. Foodshare's 2026 Book Fair flyer places the stall at the farmers market once a month, always on the month's second Saturday, while its event pages give 10 October, 14 November and 12 December 2026 as the next dates, under a partnership with the market that took effect on 31 October 2025. The same hub collects book donations for the fair on weekdays from 9am to 4pm, with a book bin outside those times, and it began taking them again on Monday 28 September 2026 once the spring fair was over.

Hours: Sat 10 October, 14 November and 12 December 2026, 9am–12:30pmWebsite

Scan before you buy

At every one of these spots, snap the shelf with BiblioScan: the AI identifies each book and shows its real resale price. Walk out with profitable books, not random boxes.

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Local sourcing tips

  • Online listings still point to the Lions Greater Bendigo Books warehouse at 60 Garsed Street, but the volunteers said on Facebook that their final sale ran on 28 and 29 March 2026 and confirmed on 12 April that they had closed for good. The Bendigo Advertiser had reported in February that the building's owners were selling up and that the project had raised just under $200,000 for charity since 2023, and the Lions book shop in the Hargreaves Mall had already shut before the warehouse did.
  • The Vinnies stores on Chapel Street and in Kangaroo Flat, Salvos Stores at Whip Court and in Kangaroo Flat, the Red Cross shop on Lyttleton Terrace and Uniting's Williamson Street op shop all have store pages online, and none of those pages mentions books, so none of these shops has a listing here. Browse them if you are passing, but do not build a day around them.
  • The Salvation Army corps runs its own thrift shop on Thistle Street in Golden Square, separate from the Salvos Stores chain. Its Facebook page pointed book lovers to a huge selection in July 2022 and to newly organised bookshelves in September 2023, but nothing more recent about books turned up, so fit it into a Golden Square errand instead of planning a trip around it.
  • Foodshare's pop-up book stall travels beyond the farmers market: it is booked for the Strathfieldsaye Spring Fling on Sunday 4 October 2026, and the charity announced on 6 August 2026 that it was returning to the Second Chance pre-loved market that weekend. Separately, Strathfieldsaye Community Church ran pop-up op shop days in February and June 2026 with every book at $1; follow its Facebook page for any further dates.
  • Bookish on Hargreaves Street is an independent shop for new titles: when the Bendigo Advertiser covered its stall at the Bendigo Writers Festival in August 2024, the owners talked about stocking authors' latest books along with their backlists. Go there for fresh releases and save the secondhand hunt for the shops above.

Frequently asked questions

Where can I find cheap used books in Bendigo?

Watch the charity tables. The Strath Village Lifeline put a batch of children's books out at $1 apiece in July 2026, and the Strathfieldsaye church pop-ups priced all their books at the same dollar. For sheer volume, the Foodshare fair over the Easter or AFL Grand Final long weekend fills a hall with donated books by the tens of thousands, with every purchase going towards food relief in central Victoria.

Where do I sell used books in Bendigo?

Book Now and Bendigo Book Mark set out no buying terms on its website or social profiles, so take a small sample in and ask first. The charities work on donations instead: Foodshare collects books at its Golden Square hub for the fair, and Lifeline takes them at the back door of its Long Gully store. Run your shelf past BiblioScan before either; one photo gets you an estimated resale price beside every spine the app recognises, and that tells you which titles are worth photographing again for Facebook Marketplace, Gumtree or eBay.com.au and which can go to charity.

Which op shops have books in Bendigo?

Three charity counters on this page showed evidence of books at that particular store: the Lifeline Loddon Mallee shops in Long Gully and Kennington and the Rotary club's dedicated bookshop in Eaglehawk. The two Lifeline stores trade Monday to Saturday, while the Rotary shop keeps to two mornings a week.

Which day is best for book hunting in Bendigo?

Saturday, since the five shops listed here only line up with their doors open together on that day. Book Mark opens daily, Book Now opens on Saturdays under both the schedules in circulation, the Eaglehawk Rotary shop opens on Saturday mornings, and the two Lifeline stores stay open until 2pm. On the month's second Saturday, the Foodshare book stall at the Golden Square farmers market is there as well.

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