This guide measures everything from Chico City Hall at 411 Main Street. Six of its seven stops are in town, four of them within a quarter mile of that address, and the seventh is a monthly library sale up the ridge in Paradise, east of town. Oroville and Gridley, to the southeast and south, fall outside the radius.
Downtown does most of the work here. The Bookstore on Main Street, the Discovery Shoppe on Flume, BaT Comics on Broadway and the Eighth & Main antique mall can all be walked in one loop, and ABC Books on Mangrove Avenue is a short drive north. Prices run from thrift-shop cheap to antique-dealer serious, so it pays to know which door you are walking through.
The library side of Chico is in transition in 2026. The Chico branch on Sherman Avenue has been closed since June 2026 and is now under a previously planned renovation that Butte County expects to finish in 2027; its Friends group has had no weekly sales since the closure, and their website now points readers to a cart at the temporary branch. Up the hill, the Paradise Friends post their sale Saturdays month by month on pfol.org.
Used bookstoresThe Bookstore
118 Main St, Chico, CA 95928
Founded in 1976 at 337 Broadway by Ronald Barrett, The Bookstore moved to 118 Main Street in October 1992, about 300 yards from City Hall, and its own site lists children's books, cookbooks, history, gardening, religion, art, signed, rare and antiquarian titles among its stock, plus a search service for hard-to-find titles, and hundreds of books join the shelves weekly. Muir Hughes and her husband Josh Mills took the shop over in 2012, and in a February 18, 2025 feature on North State Public Radio, Hughes called used-book stocking a treasure hunt on both ends, because a missing title can never just be reordered. Marking the shop's 50th year on October 4, 2026, ChicoSol found beach reads beside classic hardcovers as old as the Victorian era, and Hughes called it an everybody bookstore; Chico News & Review readers also gave it first place for Place To Buy Books in the paper's 2025 reader poll.
Hours: Daily 10am–5pmWebsite Volunteer thrift shopThe Discovery Shoppe
315 Flume St, Chico, CA 95928
A volunteer-run thrift on Flume Street between Third and Fourth, a short walk east of City Hall, which says it has traded continuously since 1959 and handed more than $1.25 million to local charities. Its visit page opens its list of finds with books, ahead of knick-knacks, clothing, housewares and jewelry, and Chico News & Review readers made it a 2025 finalist both for Best Thrift Store and for Best Place To Buy Books. It takes cash only, keeps its doors shut Sunday to Tuesday and ends Saturday trading at 1pm, with donations accepted until 3:30pm Wednesday to Friday and until 12:30pm on Saturday.
Hours: Wed–Fri 10am–4pm, Sat 10am–1pmWebsite Library book salesParadise Friends Saturday Book Sale
Emma Blackburn Community Room, Paradise Branch Library, 5922 Clark Rd, Paradise, CA 95969
In the Town of Paradise, about 12.5 miles out from City Hall on the ridge, the local Friends group holds its Saturday sale in the Emma Blackburn Community Room at the Clark Road branch, and its 2026 schedule has one date in every month. The two remaining 2026 dates are Saturday, November 21 and Saturday, December 19, each 10am to 2pm, and the county library's online calendar already shows January 16 and February 20, 2027. A paperback costs 50 cents or more and a hardcover from $1, a child's paperback is 25 cents, and anything special carries a higher mark.
Hours: Next sale: Sat Nov 21, 2026, 10am–2pmWebsite Where can I find cheap used books in Chico?
The Paradise Friends' Saturday sales publish the lowest price list on this page, with most paperbacks priced in coins. In town, the Friends' cart at the Memorial Way branch benefits the library, and the Discovery Shoppe on Flume Street is a volunteer thrift, while The Bookstore and ABC Books are where to go for a deeper choice.
Where do I sell used books in Chico?
Of the shops above, only BaT Comics posts its buying terms, so phone The Bookstore or ABC Books and ask before hauling boxes downtown. BaT buys comics by appointment, around a quarter apiece for anything from the 1980s on, and the Discovery Shoppe accepts donations on each of its four opening days. Whatever you decide, start with one BiblioScan photo per shelf: it recognizes the spines in a single shot and pins a probable resale price on each of those Chico finds, which sorts the titles worth selling online from the giveaway pile.
Which day is best for book hunting in Chico?
Saturday, ideally one of the Paradise Friends' sale Saturdays, whose dates are posted on pfol.org. Every in-town stop with posted opening times is open on Saturday, though the Discovery Shoppe locks up by early afternoon, so go there first, then drive up to Paradise before the sale there wraps up. On Sundays the Discovery Shoppe and the Memorial Way branch are both closed.
When is the Friends of the Library sale in Chico?
The Chico Friends have no sale date set while the Sherman Avenue branch is being renovated, and their website says they are still looking for a temporary venue; in the meantime, their book cart sits at the Memorial Way branch. The nearest regular sale is the Paradise Friends' once-a-month Saturday sale at the Clark Road library.