Columbia, South Carolina keeps a thin band of secondhand books near the middle of town and throws the rest at the highways. Three stops sit inside a 1.5-mile radius of the State House: the shop that took over the dining room at Baan Sawan on Devine Street, the Main branch of Richland Library on Assembly Street, and — over the Congaree, in West Columbia — Ed's Editions on Meeting Street. Past that band, a car stops being optional. The Book Dispensary sits on Gracern Road to the west-northwest, with the library system's sale room a mile on at Lancewood Road off Bush River Road and Heroes & Dragons a mile and a third further west along that same road; I-26 climbs northwest to 2nd & Charles at Harbison, US-1 runs out through West Columbia to the town of Lexington, and Two Notch Road heads the opposite way to a mission thrift store in the northeast. Any stop that falls outside the Columbia city limits names its town or county in its opening line.
Read the terms of the four buying counters below before loading anything, because none of them behaves like the others. The Book Dispensary publishes a discount ladder instead of a buy price: any paperback is 40 percent below its printed list, or 70 percent below it when you bring yours in to swap, and hardbacks come down another half against a trade. Ed's Editions has taken stock selectively since it downsized, paying store credit on most acquisitions and cash on a chosen few, and a call ahead is part of the deal. 2nd & Charles hands you a maximum of three branded totes per visit, passes the pile to a buyback manager, then puts two numbers in front of you: what it will pay in cash, and a credit line its own sell page tops out at 150 percent above that cash. Heroes & Dragons, the fourth, prices nothing publicly but says whole collections interest it as much as single items. Baan Sawan buys from nobody: flat prices, $4 a hardback and $2 a paperback, and a bookshop that shares its opening hours with a kitchen.
Three things will make an older Columbia list wrong. The first is a move: Ed's Editions vacated 406 Meeting Street as 2025 ran out, reopening at number 410 in February 2026, in a different corner of the building it has held since 2001. The second is a closure that the guidebooks have not absorbed — The State reported on February 24, 2026 that Queer Haven Books had abandoned a planned Taylor Street lease over an ICE office on Main, and the shop then told its own readers that the brick-and-mortar store would end with Pride Month, last day June 28, with the business carrying on out of a van; Experience Columbia SC was placing that shop in the Arcade Building as late as August 31, 2026. Number three is a pair of category errors: All Good Books in Five Points describes itself as an independent new bookstore, while the Half Price Books chain keeps no branch in South Carolina whatsoever, since feeding a downtown zip code to its locator returns Decatur and Marietta, both in Georgia and both roughly 190 miles out.
Used bookstoresThe Book Dispensary
710-C Gracern Rd, Columbia, SC 29210
A family business whose own About page traces it to December 2, 1975 and puts its first address in the St Andrews area near Bush River Road and I-126, in what was then the Boardwalk Plaza Shopping Center; the Gracern Road unit is where it trades today. The discount ladder is printed on the front page rather than argued at the register: 40 percent off the list price of every paperback, 70 percent off once you trade yours in, bargain marks on hardbacks with another half off against a swap, and collectibles at fair market. Two weekday quirks reward planning — clearance hardbacks give up an extra half of the lowest marked price during what the store calls Markdown Mondays, and Tuesday brings 10 percent off hardback totals for seniors plus a fourth paperback free with every three. The Experience Columbia SC bookish guide of August 31, 2026 sends readers here to swap titles at a deep discount, and a December 3, 2025 post on the horror blog Macabrary describes stock spread over several well-signed, well-lit rooms with a strong collectible run.
Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–6pm, Sun noon–6pmWebsite Used and collectible booksellerEd's Editions
410 Meeting St, West Columbia, SC 29169
Over the river in West Columbia, a family-run used and collectible shop that is blunt on its own About page about the change of number: it traded at 406 Meeting Street from the summer of 2001 through December 31, 2025, then reopened in February 2026 at 410, the west corner of the same building, with no back door any more and the Meeting Street side the only way in. Around 15,000 books stand on the floor against a smaller slice listed in the online database, which is the shop's own argument for walking through the door. Selling to it is harder than it used to be: the smaller room means books are accepted only in limited quantities, with store credit on most acquisitions, cash on a selective basis, no appetite for magazines, romance paperbacks or textbooks, and a request that you call before you come. That credit lasts a year, holds good during sales and can cover a whole purchase apart from the sales tax, which must be paid in cash.
Hours : Tue–Wed noon–4pm, Thu–Fri 10:30am–5pm, Sat 10:30am–4pmWebsite Bookshop inside a restaurantThe Used Bookshop at Baan Sawan
2135 Devine St, Columbia, SC 29205
A mile east of the center on Devine Street, in floor space a Thai bistro handed over: the Suaudom family, who built Baan Sawan on the lot in 1999, cut the room to twenty proper seats and gave what was left to a secondhand bookshop and record lounge. The first couple of hundred titles came out of the owner's own library and the count has since passed a thousand, sold at flat prices — $4 a hardback, $2 a paperback, $4 a record, $2.50 a cassette — beside sheet music and original watercolors. Read the hours twice: the shop trades Friday and Saturday between 5pm and 8pm while the kitchen is running, and adds a Monday-to-Thursday afternoon from 3pm to 7pm during each month's final week, which is the only window its Instagram bio advertises. Experience Columbia SC listed the two evening slots alone on August 31, 2026, so the restaurant's own bookshop page is the one to check before setting off.
Hours : Fri–Sat 5pm–8pmWebsite Used bookstores2nd & Charles
275-1 Harbison Blvd, Columbia, SC 29212
Just under nine miles northwest at Harbison, still inside Columbia but on the Lexington County side of the line, in the retail complex The State listed on December 3, 2025 — beside Rooms To Go and Mission BBQ — while reporting the opening date for a Trader Joe's there. The chain writes its buyback procedure down: you get three of the branded totes and no more, handed across for a buyer to weigh up, with a text or an email when the verdict lands and two numbers to pick between, cash or a credit total the sell page pegs at up to 150 percent over the cash one, remembering that the offer arrives as a single total and rejected items come back to you. It wants books of every type, audiobooks on CD, comics and manga, records, DVDs, video games and consoles, and it will not take advance reading copies, textbooks, VHS tapes or PC games. The page for this location adds the detail that ruins careless trips: the trade counter stops accepting totes a full sixty minutes ahead of closing.
Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–8pm, Sun 11am–7pmWebsite Permanent Friends of the Library shelfNever Ending Book Sale, Friends of the Lexington Main Library
Lexington Main Library, 5440 Augusta Rd, Lexington, SC 29072
Out in the town of Lexington, close to eleven miles west, a volunteer group keeps a permanent display inside the main branch and calls it the Never Ending Book Sale, with hardback titles at $2 and paperbacks and picture books at $1. The stock arrives as donations left at the circulation desk during library hours, with encyclopedia sets and textbooks refused and a call asked for on anything large, so the display turns over rather than being restocked to a timetable. Lexington County Library's page for the group sets Seasonal Book Sales and a Perpetual Used Book Sale side by side, and the volunteers themselves describe quarterly bag sales on top of the everyday shelf. Their home page is where this stops being reliable: under a footer line dated 2025, the next-sale slot reads Coming Fall 2025 against a 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM window, so use the number on their book sale page rather than that notice.
Hours : Library hours: Mon–Thu 8:30am–8pm, Fri–Sat 8:30am–5:30pm, Sun 2pm–5pmWebsite Where can I find cheap used books in Columbia?
Start with the library volunteers. Out in Lexington, the Friends group's standing shelf inside Lexington Main puts picture books and paperbacks at $1, hardbacks at $2, on sale during every hour the branch keeps. The Friends and Foundation at Richland Library set out over 30,000 secondhand items in their Lancewood Road sale room, $1 for paperbacks and $2 for hardbacks, with the fall 2026 dates landing on October 9 for donors of $50 or more and October 10 for the public; the same crew drops everything to a flat dollar for the festival weekend downtown. Among the shops, the bookshop inside Baan Sawan on Devine Street is the cheapest at $2 and $4, and The Book Dispensary knocks 40 percent off every paperback's printed price before any trade enters the conversation.
Where do I sell used books in Columbia?
Four counters take stock and no two behave alike. The Book Dispensary swaps rather than buys, turning your books into a 70 percent discount on paperbacks and 50 percent on hardbacks. Ed's Editions in West Columbia has been choosy since the move, paying mostly in credit and only occasionally in money, waving away textbooks, romance paperbacks and magazines alike, and asking for a call in advance. At Harbison, 2nd & Charles takes three totes at most per visit, answers with a cash offer or a store-credit figure the same page puts as much as 150 percent over it, and closes its trade counter sixty minutes early. Heroes & Dragons is the fourth, taking used books along with comics, DVDs and toys, and it says a whole collection interests it as readily as one rare item. Triage matters more than the counter you pick: BiblioScan turns a single photograph of a full shelf into a per-title resale estimate, which is how you learn inside a minute that most of the stack is trade fodder and four copies are not.
When is the Friends of the Library sale in Columbia?
Richland Library's own group says it holds four a year — winter, spring, summer and fall — with specialty sales on top, and stages them at the Operations Center, 130 Lancewood Road, instead of at a branch. For fall 2026 the donor preview occupies Friday afternoon, October 9, from three until half past six, restricted to anyone who has given $50 or more in the past twelve months; the public session follows on Saturday the 10th, 10am until 3pm. A dollar-a-book version turns up at the festival Richland Library Main hosts on Assembly Street, an event now advertising April 2 to 4, 2027 on its home page. Over in Lexington County the equivalent never closes: the volunteer display inside the main branch on Augusta Road sells all year.
Which day is best for book hunting in Columbia?
Saturday wins comfortably. Every shop listed here opens, the Lexington display is reachable from 8:30am to 5:30pm, the mission thrift floor runs until 7pm, and the open session of the fall Richland sale is on a Saturday as well. Two clocks still need watching: Ed's Editions closes its door at four and the room inside Baan Sawan waits until five, which is an argument for working west to east across the day. Sunday is much thinner — The Book Dispensary from noon, 2nd & Charles from 11am, Heroes & Dragons from noon to five, the Lexington branch for three hours in the afternoon — while Tuesday narrows the range rather than the count, since Ed's runs only from noon to four and the Devine Street room stays dark.