Billings keeps its secondhand paper on two short axes, and neither one costs you much driving. Downtown pairs A Few Books More, on North 32nd Street, with the Friends' Book Nook, which sits inside the North Broadway public library — 0.27 miles between the two doors, and the same building the Community Room sale drops into each spring and fall. The second axis is 16th Street West: the Book Cellar and Central Christian Church stand about a hundred yards apart on the same stretch, one open four days out of seven, the other for a single week twice a year. Gratitude in Action sits off on its own to the southwest, a thrift store on 1st Avenue South 1.3 miles from the middle of downtown.
Two facts shape everything else. First, this is a calendar town rather than a storefront town: the church counts over 80,000 volumes at fifty cents and a dollar, and the library Friends empty a room into a sale each spring and each fall, with pop-up tables in between. Second, Half Price Books has no Montana store — the chain's finder counted 116 shops in 19 states in September 2026, gave nothing for a 300-mile ring around ZIP 59101, and returns a 404 on the Montana state page.
Four names surface in any Billings bookstore search and none of them belongs on a secondhand list. This House of Books, the member-owned co-op downtown, sells new titles and cautions on its own site that the online catalog shows warehouse availability rather than what is on the Billings shelves. Barjon's Books on North 29th has run on metaphysical and spiritual stock since 1977, offering to special-order almost anything in or out of print, while a directory listing describes Emmaus Road on Grand Avenue as a Catholic bookstore carrying Bibles, spiritual books, jewelry and gifts. Goodwill keeps three stores in town, and the About this Store text on all three names secondhand fashion, furniture and home goods without a word about books.
Used bookstoresA Few Books More
520 N 32nd St, Billings, MT 59101
North 32nd Street in west downtown, a quarter mile from the public library, in a shop its own Facebook page bills as Billings' largest selection of out-of-print, used and collectible books since 2003. The feed reads less like advertising than like a shelving log: the men's adventure and military fiction hardcovers were consolidated on August 7, 2026 while science fiction was being refilled from Z back toward A, a batch of Russian, Greek and Dutch foreign-language stock went into processing on August 13, 2026 alongside Western, Montana and Native American history, and the classics and literature run reopened on September 3, 2026 with more room for poetry, short stories and Shakespeare. The August 13 post put the counter at 9:30 to 5:00, Monday through Saturday, and a week later the shop added that downtown parking costs nothing on a Saturday. A post of August 26, 2026 added that the titles people keep asking after had been moved out to the counter, often as the last copy in the building.
Hours : Mon–Sat 9:30am–5pmWebsite Used bookstoresThe Book Cellar
Alpine Village Center, 1120 16th St W Ste 2, Billings, MT 59102
A unit in the Alpine Village Center on 16th Street West, 2.7 miles west of the center, listing itself on Facebook as celebrating 37 years of selling used and rare books in Billings. Markdowns move section by section rather than sweeping the whole floor: a post of February 6, 2026 set contemporary fiction and romance at buy three, get two free and took another half off the presidential and First Lady biographies over in history, and January 8, 2026 was given to audiobooks. Visit Billings carries it in the tourism directory as a cozy local shop selling used and rare books, at suite 2 on (406) 248-4284, though a couple of business directories print suite 3 against that same number. CommunityVotes Billings gave it Silver in the 2026 rare-and-used-books vote, published that February, which is also the month of its last post, so call ahead instead of banking on the trip west.
Hours : Wed–Sat 10am–5:30pmWebsite Friends of the Library shelfThe Book Nook
Billings Public Library, 510 N Broadway, Billings, MT 59101
A permanent secondhand nook on floor one of the public library, stocked by the Friends of Billings Public Library, who call it the space behind the elevators on their homepage and the retail unit next to the Stompin' Grounds Book Café by the Rimrock reflecting pool on their sales page — one room, two sets of directions. It keeps no register of its own: you settle at the café counter or at the Friends' workroom beside the stairs, and the group publishes its own schedule — 9am to 8pm Monday to Thursday, with Friday ending at 6pm and Saturday at 5pm, dark on Sunday. Cody Boyer of Q2 wrote the corner up on February 6, 2026 for a Saturday pop-up sale staged inside it, quoting staff on affordable pricing and noting that the money goes back into library programming. The Friends' own calendar lists two more pop-ups in the room, August 22 and a collectibles table on September 5, 2026, each 9am to 2pm.
Hours : Mon–Thu 9am–8pm, Fri 9am–6pm, Sat 9am–5pm; closed SunWebsite Twice-yearly church book saleCentral Christian Church Book Sale
1221 16th St W, Billings, MT 59102
Behind Lithia Toyota on 16th Street West, across from West Park Promenade, under a tall white cross: a congregation that has staged one sale each spring and one each fall since 2006, started and still run by church volunteer Ron May. The church counts more than 80,000 paperbacks and hardbacks plus thousands of DVDs, CDs, LPs and puzzles, holds pricing it says has not moved in two decades, a paperback going for fifty cents and a hardback for a dollar, and claims the title of largest book sale in the entire Northwest; the spring 2026 run went Monday, April 20 to Saturday, April 25, ten to four every day, with CDs at $2, DVDs at $3, puzzles at $1 and a quilt raffle across the week. The fall date is the catch — the church's book sale page still read dates to be determined in early September 2026, while a post from A Few Books More dated August 31, 2026 said the congregation had dropped off flyers for a September 21 to 26 sale carrying more than 75,000 titles. Book donations are taken all year, and the Book Cellar sits a short walk up the same street, which makes the pair a single stop rather than two errands.
Where can I find cheap used books in Billings?
Central Christian Church is the cheapest thing on this page whenever it opens: $0.50 paperbacks and $1 hardbacks, a scale the congregation says has held for two decades, across more than 80,000 volumes plus DVDs at $3, CDs at $2 and puzzles at a dollar. Between those weeks the library Friends are the standing option, both at the Book Nook inside the library and at the Community Room sale, where volunteers price everything by category before the doors open; Q2 quoted library staff in February 2026 calling the pop-up prices affordable. Gratitude in Action on 1st Avenue South lists books among what it resells and charges thrift-store money for them, with the proceeds funding sober living on the same campus.
Where do I sell used books in Billings?
Start by accepting that no chain counter exists to walk into: Half Price Books showed 116 stores in 19 states on its own finder in September 2026, with Montana absent from the list. Neither of the two used bookstores on this page keeps a website — A Few Books More and the Book Cellar both work off Facebook pages — so trade terms are a question for the counter or for a phone call. What Billings does put in writing is three organizations that will accept the books: Central Christian Church takes donations all year for its spring and fall sales, the library Friends fill the Book Nook and their Community Room sale entirely from donated material, and Gratitude in Action stops taking donations at 2pm. Do the triage at home. Photographed spine-out, a shelf goes into BiblioScan and comes out as a list of secondhand prices for the titles it knows, which is enough to separate an eBay listing from a donation-box filler.
When is the Friends of the Library sale in Billings?
Billings Public Library's Friends group holds two Community Room sales a year, a spring one and a fall one, and publishes the dates on its own site. The 2026 fall edition gives members a Thursday evening to themselves, October 8 from 5pm until 7pm, and then opens to everybody on Friday the 9th and Saturday the 10th of October, 9am to 4pm each day, in the Community Room at 510 North Broadway. A spring 2027 sale is already listed with its April dates to be announced, and members are emailed the preview and public times before any other announcement goes out. In between, the same group works the Book Nook whenever the library is unlocked and sets up pop-up tables inside it, one of them on August 22, 2026 and a collectibles session on the 5th of September.
Which day is best for book hunting in Billings?
Thursday, if you want a single answer, though anything from Wednesday on will do. Those four days are when the Book Cellar, A Few Books More, the Book Nook and Gratitude in Action are all open; Monday and Tuesday drop the Book Cellar, and Sunday drops all four. What Thursday adds is the late window, because the Book Nook keeps library hours to 8pm while its neighbors are locked by 5:30pm. Saturday has one thing going for it that the others do not — A Few Books More points out that downtown parking costs nothing then — but it is also the day everything closes earliest, Gratitude in Action at 4pm.