Where to buy used books in Brisbane

Updated 9/27/2026

Brisbane's secondhand trade starts on one CBD block and then spreads a long way. Archives Fine Books holds the ground floor of an old printing works on Charlotte Street, and across the Victoria Bridge West End packs Bent Books, a Saturday market stall at Davies Park and a basement op shop into a short walk. After that the good shelves sit in suburbs you drive to: Nundah and Windsor on the north side, Corinda, Salisbury and Mount Gravatt East to the south, Paddington, Red Hill and Wynnum. This page follows the Brisbane urban area the way the Australian Bureau of Statistics draws it, so it reaches Logan City, Redcliffe, North Lakes, Bribie Island and the Dayboro hills too; every stop outside the inner city names its suburb in the first line. The Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast have pages of their own.

Selling here means reading the fine print, because no two counters pay the same way. Archives' published buying policy centres on collectible and fine copies and says ordinary stock earns somewhere between nothing and a dollar a book, mostly as a donation and sometimes as credit. Bent Books asks for emailed pictures of the stacks before a single box comes through the door. The Really Good Book Shop in Hillcrest gives store credit only, one bag at a time, and The Book Bucket's two shops and Aussie Secondhand Bookshop in Logan Village run exchange schemes rather than cash buying. All prices quoted below are Australian dollars.

Two dates matter more than any shop. Lifeline Queensland's Bookfest fills two halls of the convention centre in South Brisbane, last from 27 June to 5 July 2026, and the centre's calendar has it back from 16 to 24 January 2027. The University of Queensland's alumni book fair takes over the UQ Centre at St Lucia once a year, and its 2026 edition ran from 27 February to 1 March. One name that still turns up on older lists has gone south: The Book Merchant Jenkins left West End for Tasmania.

Spot map

The best spots

Secondhand & antiquarian bookshop

Archives Fine Books

40 Charlotte St, Brisbane City QLD 4000

The ground floor of John Mills Himself, the heritage-listed former printing works on Charlotte Street, where the shop has traded since 1985 and Hamish Alcorn has owned it since 2008. The stock runs from westerns, quilting and military history through to the antiquarian and fine-binding end, which the shop credits to Dawn Albinger's vision, and the shop marked 40 years in the CBD with five free evening events between 21 and 24 August 2025, according to its own news page. Its selling page is blunt: general stock is mostly taken as a donation or for store credit, cash for non-collectibles runs from $0 to $1 a book, collectibles can go on consignment for a 40% fee, and it wants an email with shelf photos, spines facing out, before you carry anything in.

Hours: Mon–Sat 10am–5pm; closed SunWebsite
Used bookstores

Bent Books

205a Boundary St, West End QLD 4101

West End, in a brightly painted cottage where Boundary Street meets Vulture Street, a building Concrete Playground's May 2026 guide says the shop moved into the year before. Bent has sold used books in the suburb for 29 years by its own count, and InDaily's July 2026 roundup describes new arrivals going onto the shelves every day. Sellers email photos of their spines, stacked or shelved, and get back a list of what the shop would take, the price and a date; turning up unannounced with boxes is the one thing it asks you not to do. The posted times are loose by design, written as 10ish to 4ish, and 3ish on a Sunday.

Hours: Mon–Sat 10am–4pm, Sun 10am–3pmWebsite
Charity bookshop

Cystic Fibrosis Queensland Bookshop

3/160 Ryans Rd, Nundah QLD 4012

Nundah, in a unit on Ryans Road, a warehouse-scale charity bookshop run by Cystic Fibrosis Queensland, with proceeds split between the shop and the Lord Mayor's Charitable Trust. Pricing is tiered by the basket: adult titles cost $5, falling to $4 each from ten books and $3 from twenty, while children's books are $2, or $1.50 apiece from fifteen, within the $5-to-$3 range Concrete Playground reported in May 2026. Staff will hunt for a title by phone or email and post it for the Australia Post charge, and any book can be donated during opening hours in the big plastic tub by the door.

Hours: Wed–Fri 9am–5pm, Sat–Sun 10am–4pm; closed Mon–TueWebsite
New & used bookshop

The Really Good Book Shop

Shop 4/1-3 Central Ct, Hillcrest QLD 4118

Hillcrest, in Logan City, on the corner of Johnson Road and Central Court near the Grand Plaza centre at Browns Plains, about 600 metres from the bus station by the shop's reckoning. It opened in 2006 as a used bookshop with some 15,000 titles, and its About page counts well over 100,000 new and used books on the shelves, all catalogued on its website. Trade-ins are settled as shop credit, with no cash option, and since 1 November 2021 the limit has been one bag, roughly 20 books, per visit. Must Do Brisbane's February 2026 profile adds that parking in the onsite car park is free.

Hours: Mon–Wed 9am–5:30pm, Thu–Fri 9am–6:30pm, Sat 9am–4pm; closed SunWebsite
Lifeline Bookfest

Lifeline Bookfest Brisbane

Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, Glenelg St, South Brisbane QLD 4101

South Brisbane, in Halls 3 and 4 of the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, where Lifeline Queensland stages its Brisbane Bookfest to fund the 13 11 14 crisis line. The winter 2026 edition ran from Saturday 27 June to Sunday 5 July, 8:30am to 6pm daily and until 4pm on the last Sunday, with free entry, books from $2.50 and a Comic Fest corner of more than 10,000 comics and collectables. Lifeline's Facebook team said during that run that tables are restocked throughout, and the convention centre's events calendar lists the next Bookfest for 16 to 24 January 2027. Trolleys are supplied, but bring your own bags or a suitcase, or pay $1 for a Lifeline bag.

Hours: Last documented: 27 June–5 July 2026, 8:30am–6pm (Sun 5 July until 4pm)Website

All spots by type

Used bookstores

Used bookstores

Mount Gravatt Bookshop

16 Carrara St, Mount Gravatt East QLD 4122

Mount Gravatt East, on Carrara Street, a shop Peter and Raelene Moynihan opened in April 1988; Cindy Tumes, on staff since 1995, took the business on after Peter died in 2012. The shelves hold secondhand and vintage fiction and non-fiction with a big children's section, and the website keeps a genre of the month, legal thrillers when checked in September 2026, listing the Grisham, Fairstein and Patterson titles actually in stock. Its homepage announced a Christmas closure from Wednesday 24 December 2025, with the shop reopening on Wednesday 7 January 2026.

Hours: Mon, Wed, Fri 9am–5pm; Tue, Thu 9am–4pm; Sat 9am–2:30pm; closed SunWebsite
Used bookstores

A page or two… Bookshop

605 Oxley Rd, Corinda QLD 4075

Corinda, on Oxley Road about three minutes' walk from the railway station, in the same shopfront since 1998. Linda, who started there in 2001, bought the business in 2015 and gave it its present name, and the shop's own history page records a sale to John Tate in 2025, with Linda staying on part-time. The range leans towards literature and the old classics, Australiana, military history, vintage science fiction and Folio Society editions, next to a book-finding service and a shelf of locally made gifts.

Hours: Wed–Fri 9:30am–5pm, Sat 9:30am–1pm; closed Sun–TueWebsite
Book room in an antiques centre

The Cupboard Under the Stage

Empire Revival, 167 Latrobe Tce, Paddington QLD 4064

Paddington, inside Empire Revival, the antiques collective in the old Plaza Theatre, which added this secondhand book room in 2020. Must Do Brisbane's February 2026 write-up gives the route: through the foyer, right under the blue auditorium ceiling, down a few stairs, then through a door and another staircase into a nook with shelves sorted by category, from military history to old superhero comics, plus locked cases of early twentieth-century editions. Queensland's tourism site called the prices budget-friendly in July 2026 and gives the same seven-day hours that Empire Revival posts for the building on its own website.

Hours: Mon–Sat 10am–5pm, Sun 10am–4pmWebsite
Used bookstores

Gigglefit Grammar

1/140 Bay Tce, Wynnum QLD 4178

Wynnum, on Bay Terrace, a secondhand shop that began at Wynnum Plaza as Rainbow Books, became Bayside Books under the former journalist David Ross, and passed to Darren McGreevy in 2018, after Ross died. The site lists more than 30,000 pre-loved titles alongside records and movies, catalogued online so you can check a shelf before the drive, with a separate page for the scarcer copies. Posts kept appearing on its Facebook page into April 2026, and Must Do Brisbane's February 2026 listing keeps the old Bayside Books name next to the new one, which helps when an older map sends you looking for it.

Hours: Tue–Sat 9am–3pm; closed Sun–MonWebsite
Book exchange

Aussie Secondhand Bookshop

Shop 1, 12-14 Centenary Pl, Logan Village QLD 4207

Logan Village, on Centenary Place at the rural southern edge of Logan City, a shop built around a book exchange: bring in clean, tidy books and you buy more at a discount. The owner, Sandra, posts new stock and sales on Facebook and says part of the takings goes to Australian charities every month, and the shop's website announced on 8 July 2026 that it was a finalist in the local business awards. The association directory for used and rare dealers in south-east Queensland still lists Monday to Saturday mornings, but the shop's own contact page, which adds that it shuts on the Saturday of a long weekend, is the one to follow.

Hours: Mon–Fri 9am–1pm, Sat 9am–noon; closed Sun and public holidaysWebsite
Antiques & rare books

Bohemian De'cor

Dayboro Butter Factory, 38 Williams St, Dayboro QLD 4521

Dayboro, at the front of the old Butter Factory on Williams Street, out in the hills of the Moreton Bay region. It is an antiques shop with a serious book side, listed by the regional used and rare booksellers' association for Norman Lindsay, rare and out-of-print Australian titles, vintage children's books and equestrian subjects. Posts on its Facebook page from Mother's Day 2026 through late August 2026 give the same hours, every day except Tuesday and Wednesday, in step with the association's listing.

Hours: Thu–Mon 9am–4pm; closed Tue–WedWebsite
Book exchange

The Book Bucket – Redcliffe

140 Sutton St, Redcliffe QLD 4020

Redcliffe, at the lower end of Sutton Street near the RSL roundabout, the first shop of a family-run book exchange that began on Anzac Avenue, opposite Mon Komo, before moving here; its sister shop at Bongaree on Bribie Island is also on this page. Books bought in any Book Bucket can be traded back, as can your own, for points linked to the shelf price, under conditions set out in store. Its Facebook page confirmed opening right through Easter 2026, Good Friday included, and the counter keeps a wishlist, with a week to collect anything the staff turn up for you.

Hours: Daily 8:30am–4:30pm; closed 25 DecemberWebsite
Book exchange

The Book Bucket – Bribie Island

Shop 3/1 Toorbul St, Bongaree QLD 4507

Bongaree, on Bribie Island, opposite the jetty and Brennan Park on the Passage side, the Book Bucket branch that its own page describes as holding more than 25,000 titles. It runs the same trade-back scheme as Redcliffe, paying points against shelf price, and it is where the chain takes bulk trade-ins, by appointment through the rear loading bay once you have spoken to staff in person. The branch page's holiday list for Christmas 2025 closed the doors only on Thursday 25 December and kept them open through New Year; customer parking is on the corner of Toorbul Street and First Avenue.

Hours: Mon–Sun 8:30am–4:30pm; closed 25 DecemberWebsite
New & pre-loved bookshop

Wonderland Bookshop & Emporium

Shop 2/93 Redcliffe Pde, Redcliffe QLD 4020

Redcliffe, in The Walk Arcade on the waterfront stretch of Redcliffe Parade, a shop over more than one floor that its Facebook page describes as selling new and pre-loved fashion, jewellery, books and tarot, while its Instagram bio speaks of three levels of pre-loved and new books. The page was busy through August and September 2026: on 26 August it announced its first book launch, for local author Liana Parker's science fiction novel We The Fallen on Sunday 30 August, and on 9 September it reported a full Blind Date Section. Nothing on its pages gives the share of used stock against new, so expect a mix.

Op shops & charity shops

Volunteer community bookshop

Salisbury Community Bookshop

1/17 Chrome St, Salisbury QLD 4107

Salisbury, up a driveway in the Chrome Street industrial estate, where Must Do Brisbane's listing, updated in August 2026, places a volunteer bookshop inside a Second World War shed that once turned out grenades. The Salisbury Community Group was set up to take over the charity bookshop Cystic Fibrosis used to run on Ainsworth Street, and every book on the tall metal shelves is donated, with a young adult section and a padded children's corner. Its FAQ is clear that the group does not buy books. The website still carries notices from the pandemic years, so treat its weekday and Saturday-morning timetable as a guide and phone before a long drive.

Op shop (Lifeline)

Lifeline Shop North Lakes

1B/109 Flinders Pde, North Lakes QLD 4509

North Lakes, in a warehouse on Flinders Parade not far from Costco, the Lifeline op shop that Brisbane's lifestyle press keeps sending book hunters to. Sitchu described its floor-to-ceiling shelves and reading armchairs in February 2026, and Must Do Brisbane's May 2026 listing puts the books, on shelving and old school lockers, in a back corner beyond the Vintage Revival and Plant Revival sections.

Op shop (Salvos Stores)

Salvos Stores Red Hill

80 Glenrosa Rd, Red Hill QLD 4059

Red Hill, on Glenrosa Road, a Salvos Stores that Sitchu's February 2026 op shop guide rated among the largest in town, a big tin shed crammed with preloved fashion, accessories and books. Furniture and bicycles fill a second building, and the same guide found the whole place orderly for its size. Salvos Stores keeps the opening times in its online store finder.

Op shop (Lifeline)

Lifeline Shop Windsor

100 Lutwyche Rd, Windsor QLD 4030

Windsor, on Lutwyche Road, the Lifeline superstore that relocated from Newmarket Road and, in Sitchu's February 2026 telling, kept some of its size. Upstairs are the clothing racks and a Vintage Revival corner, and the same guide says a hefty science fiction and young adult book section is usually there to dig through. Lifeline Queensland's shop finder carries the current hours.

Independent op shop

Serendipity Op Shop

79 Russell St, West End QLD 4101

West End, in a basement reached from a laneway off Russell Street, beneath a Thai massage parlour, an independent op shop whose owner, Eva Heyward, picks every item herself as a stand against fast fashion. A Must Do Brisbane profile revised in February 2026 counts secondhand books among the clothes, shoes, toys and homewares, and there is a coffee counter for a break before you browse. Bent Books and the Davies Park market are a few minutes away on foot, so it folds easily into a West End Saturday.

Flea markets

Market book stall

Literati Book Stall

West End Markets, Davies Park, cnr Montague Rd & Jane St, West End QLD 4101

West End, at the Saturday market in Davies Park, where a registered secondhand dealer active since 1995 sets out a stall of mostly used stock: Australiana, art, photography, poetry, drama, politics, philosophy and fiction. The owner buys books too, and the website asks sellers to phone or email first. Its online catalogue was still adding titles in September 2026, which makes it easy to ask for a particular book to come along on the Saturday.

Hours: Sat 6am–2pmWebsite

Book fairs

Book fairs

UQ Alumni Book Fair

UQ Centre, Union Rd, St Lucia QLD 4067

St Lucia, in the UQ Centre on the University of Queensland campus, where the Alumni Friends volunteers turn a year of community donations into what the university calls its annual book fair. The 2026 edition ran from Friday 27 February to Sunday 1 March with more than 130,000 books and records from $1, and UQ reports that over 10,000 visitors raised more than $240,000 for scholarships and research. A 2027 fair is confirmed without a date; until it is set, donations go to the Book Shed behind Building 82E at any hour.

Hours: Last documented: 27 February–1 March 2026 (Fri 9am–9pm, Sat 9am–7pm, Sun 9am–5pm)Website

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.

Try BiblioScan for free

Local sourcing tips

  • Know which counter pays what before you load the car. Archives wants an email with photographs of the title page and binding for anything collectible, and says it will sometimes come out to a collection in greater Brisbane when interested and time allows. Bent Books replies to shelf photos with its picks, a figure and a buying date. Hillcrest caps each trade at about twenty books, while the two Book Bucket shops and the Logan Village exchange swap stock rather than buy it, and Literati asks sellers to phone first. The remaining stops are charity outlets that accept donations and pay nothing.
  • Donations have an easy route in this city. Cystic Fibrosis Queensland leaves a big tub outside its Nundah shop during trading hours, UQ keeps its Book Shed open at St Lucia around the clock, and Lifeline takes books at its shops and donation bins all year and puts crates inside each hall entrance during Bookfest. For Brisbane homes with more than ten medium boxes, the UQ Book Group offers to discuss a collection.
  • Several Brisbane names on older lists no longer have a shop to visit. The Book Merchant Jenkins shut its Dornoch Terrace premises in February 2024 and has since set up beside the Huon River in far south Tasmania. Crossroads Books in Ipswich sold everything at a dollar before shutting its doors that April. Harbeck Rare Books, Hill End Books, Gotcha By The Books, Terra Australis Books and Viceroy Books all sell online or by appointment only.
  • Plenty of Brisbane bookshops with a loyal following sell new books, including Avid Reader, Riverbend Books, Pulp Fiction and Scrumptious Reads. One partial exception is Baffies Oan Books in Samford Valley, which buys back books that were bought there first, for up to $5 in store credit each, and shelves them second-hand.
  • Ipswich has a Lifeline Bookfest of its own at the charity's Briggs Road warehouse in Raceview, which ran in April and October 2025. Lifeline's page for it now says only that it will return in 2027, with no date set, so check there before planning a trip west.
  • Both coasts to the north and south are separate urban areas, so the Lifeline Bookfest held on the Gold Coast and the Book Bucket shops at Caloundra and Maroochydore fall outside this page. Everything listed here lies inside the Brisbane urban area, from Bongaree on Bribie Island down to Logan Village, which is why a Dayboro antiques shop appears beside the inner-city names.

Frequently asked questions

Where can I find cheap used books in Brisbane?

The charity rooms are where the prices drop. The Cystic Fibrosis Queensland Bookshop in Nundah starts adult books at $5 and slides to $3 each once you reach twenty, with children's titles down to $1.50. Salisbury's volunteer bookshop sells only donated stock, and the two big sales undercut everyone: Lifeline's June and July 2026 Bookfest started books at $2.50, and UQ's alumni fair priced from $1 in February 2026. For everyday cheap browsing, the book corners at Lifeline North Lakes and Salvos Red Hill are the op shops the local press singles out.

Where do I sell used books in Brisbane?

Cash buyers are scarce, so decide early whether you want money or credit. Archives Fine Books is the place for collectible, signed or finely bound copies, by email with photos, while Bent Books picks from photos of spines you send in and pays for what it chooses. Four shops further out, in Hillcrest, Redcliffe, Bongaree and Logan Village, deal only in credit or swaps. Before any of that, photograph a shelf with BiblioScan: it picks out each spine in the picture and puts a resale value next to it, so you can set aside the handful worth listing on eBay or Amazon under your own name and take the rest to a counter or a donation tub.

When is the big book sale in Brisbane?

Lifeline Bookfest is the big one. Lifeline Queensland's winter 2026 edition filled the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre for nine days until 5 July, and the centre's calendar shows the next one from Saturday 16 to Sunday 24 January 2027. The UQ Alumni Book Fair is the other fixture, held at St Lucia over the last weekend of February 2026, running into Sunday 1 March, and confirmed for 2027 without a date. Lifeline's smaller Ipswich Bookfest has also said it will be back in 2027.

Which op shops have books in Brisbane?

Pick the ones with a documented book section rather than trusting a chain's general promise. Sitchu and Must Do Brisbane both describe floor-to-ceiling shelves of books at Lifeline North Lakes in 2026, Sitchu found a large science fiction and young adult section upstairs at Lifeline Windsor and books throughout the big Salvos shed in Red Hill, and Serendipity in West End stocks secondhand books among its clothes. The two dedicated charity bookshops, Cystic Fibrosis Queensland in Nundah and the volunteer shop in Salisbury, are both charity bookshops.

Which day is best for book hunting in Brisbane?

Saturday, as long as you start early. Among the stops with published hours, every shop and stall opens that day, and Literati's stall trades on no other, but several close by mid-afternoon: Aussie Secondhand at noon, A page or two at 1pm, Mount Gravatt at 2:30pm and Gigglefit Grammar at 3pm. Sunday is the thinnest day, with only Bent Books, the Cystic Fibrosis bookshop, the Cupboard Under the Stage, Bohemian De'cor and both Book Bucket shops open. Monday and Tuesday each lose three: the Nundah charity shop and Corinda are shut on both, joined by Gigglefit on Monday and Dayboro on Tuesday.

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