The four shops on this page fit into a single day of hunting around Brantford, while the two sales each want a date circled on the calendar. Downtown, the Symphony Orchestra's spring book fair takes over Laurier's One Market building on Market Street; the Brantford Bookworm sits up Brant Avenue to the northwest, Megs + Clarke a little farther north on King George Road, and CaptCan Comics out east on Elgin Street. The rest is in Paris, the County of Brant town about 11 km up the Grand River, where a café-bookshop and the county library's Paris branch stand roughly 150 m apart. All prices below are Canadian dollars.
Selling takes some planning, because each counter works on its own terms. The Bookworm pays in store credit with firm limits on how it's spent, Megs + Clarke takes children's books on consignment and splits the price once they sell, CaptCan buys comic collections, and the Paris café swaps accepted donations for loyalty stamps redeemable on books only. The orchestra's fair takes donated books for its sale rather than buying them.
Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph each have their own page, and Cambridge falls under the Kitchener-Waterloo one. Paris lost a bookshop in 2024 when Green Heron Books closed after 22 years, so an older list naming it is out of date.
Used bookstoresThe Brantford Bookworm
331 Brant Ave, Brantford, ON
On Brant Avenue, 1.8 km northwest of downtown, a secondhand bookshop that describes itself on its website as locally owned and operated for more than 45 years, with a family room given over to children's and young-adult books, a fantasy room, and long runs of mystery, history, science fiction, cookbooks and biography. Books it takes in are paid for in store credit, never cash; that credit lasts a year, covers at most one dollar in two at the till, can't be spent on local-author or consignment titles, and the shop asks sellers to arrive with just a bag or box or two per visit. Copies with missing covers or pages, highlighting, handwriting or water stains are turned away. On March 3, 2026, the shop's Facebook page posted the list of books its bookseller had read so far that year, promising a new one each month.
Hours: Tue–Fri 10am–5pm, Sat 10am–4pmWebsite Café and secondhand bookshopDog-Eared Café
121 Grand River St N, Paris, ON
Out in Paris, in the County of Brant, 11.5 km west-northwest of downtown Brantford, a coffee house on Grand River Street North that doubles as a secondhand bookshop, claiming over 5,000 titles priced with colour-coded stickers and new arrivals weekly. It doesn't buy across the counter, since a separate buyer stocks the shelves; near-new donations are instead taken by emailed appointment, before 10am or after 2pm from Monday to Thursday, and each book accepted earns a loyalty stamp worth $2 toward later book purchases, never food or drinks. The showcase of collectible copies runs to signed Canadian first editions and a US first-edition Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince carrying a pagination misprint, tagged at $610. Its events page listed an open-mic music night for Friday, September 25, 2026, Friday being the late night in its posted hours.
Hours: Sun–Thu 8am–6pm, Fri 8am–10pm, Sat 8am–6pmWebsite Charity book fairBrantford Symphony Orchestra Book Fair
One Market, 1 Market St, Brantford, ON N3T 6C8
The orchestra's fundraising book fair, which it bills as Ontario's largest second-hand book sale and dates back to 1964, filled Wilfrid Laurier University's One Market building downtown from April 22 to 25, 2026, the second spring running at that address. In a BrantBeacon preview dated April 8, 2026, co-chair Penny MacKenzie said the 2025 edition raised $60,000, and the paper described a free table for books unlikely to sell, a fiction section alphabetized by author for the first time and a run of out-of-print "oldies but goodies" that volunteers price against AbeBooks listings. Puzzles, vinyl, CDs and DVDs share the tables, payment is cash, cheque or debit only, and donations were collected at the Dalhousie Street entrance from March 13 to April 17, 2026, minus encyclopedias, National Geographics, Reader's Digest volumes, library discards, old textbooks, magazines and tapes. The orchestra's own page calls the fair annual, but its calendar showed no 2027 dates as of September 28, 2026.
Hours: Last documented: April 22–24, 2026, 9:30am–8pm; April 25, 9:30am–3pmWebsite Friends of the Library saleBrant Friends of the Library Fill-a-Bag Sale
County of Brant Public Library, Paris Branch, 12 William St, Paris, ON
At the Paris branch library, a County of Brant address 11.6 km from downtown Brantford, a Friends group fills the second-floor program room on Saturday, October 3, 2026, charging $5 for whatever books fit in a standard reusable grocery bag. The library's events calendar carried the same $5 bag deal for Saturday, May 2, 2026 and Saturday, May 3, 2025, and an Instagram post from the library on April 25, 2025 described it as semi-annual. The Dog-Eared Café is under 200 m away, so one Paris morning covers both.
Hours: Saturday, October 3, 2026, 10am–4pmWebsite Where can I find cheap used books in Brantford?
Go to Paris on October 3, 2026, when the Friends of the Library charge $5 for a full grocery bag at the county branch on William Street. In spring, the Symphony's fair at One Market is the big event, with thousands of donated books across several rooms. Between sales, children's books at Megs + Clarke drop by a quarter after their first month on the floor, and the Bookworm's trade credit stretches your spending, since up to half of each purchase can go on credit.
Where do I sell used books in Brantford?
Locally, you trade or consign rather than sell outright: the Bookworm gives store credit only, Megs + Clarke consigns children's books and pays its share when they sell, and the Dog-Eared Café turns accepted donations into $2 loyalty stamps for its book shelves. Older comics and key issues can go to CaptCan. For cash, photograph a shelf with BiblioScan before you box anything up; it recognizes the spines in that one picture and shows what each copy could resell for. Post the few worth real money to Kijiji or Facebook Marketplace, send rarer titles to AbeBooks or to eBay.ca and Amazon.ca, and trade the remainder at the Bookworm.
Which day is best for book hunting in Brantford?
Saturday, because both 2026 sales on this page end or fall on one and all four shops open, though CaptCan shuts at 2pm and the Bookworm at 4pm. For a relaxed shop run, Wednesday to Friday also finds all four open, with longer afternoons. Sunday leaves only the Paris café; on Monday the Bookworm stays shut and on Tuesday CaptCan does.
When is the big book sale in Brantford?
The Brantford Symphony Orchestra Book Fair, which has landed in late April two years running: the 2025 edition ran April 23 to 26 and the 2026 one April 22 to 25, both at One Market. The orchestra hadn't posted 2027 dates by September 28, 2026, so watch its website from early in the new year.