Edmonton's secondhand book trade gathers on both banks of the North Saskatchewan. South of the river, Whyte Avenue in Old Strathcona holds the older of Wee Book Inn's two stores, the Edmonton Book Store and, a block below the avenue, Alhambra Books, all three within roughly 700 metres of each other, with Porch Light Books under a kilometre to the north-east in Mill Creek. North of the river the stops spread out: Wee Book Inn's Jasper Avenue store and the public library's Books2Buy sales in the Milner building downtown, Paper Birch in McCauley, Daisy Chain on 102 Avenue, and charity and Christian counters up on 118 and 127 Avenue, while the MCC shop sits well to the south on 51 Avenue. The remaining entries lie in neighbouring municipalities of the census metropolitan area, St. Albert, Sherwood Park in Strathcona County and Beaumont, and every such entry says so up front. Every price quoted below is in Canadian dollars.
The shops set the city's book calendar between them. The third Edmonton Indie Bookstore Extravaganza, held on April 25 and 26, 2026, sent passport-carrying customers around 16 independent sellers, and Céline Chuang of Paper Birch, one of its founders, told the Edmonton Journal on April 23, 2026 that she believed every store taking part had called the event's Saturday its busiest day ever. Summer 2026 added a second format: the Bound By Books Book Crawl, a bus tour by Novel Night Events whose first run sold out, was set to return on Saturday, August 15 with Wee Book Inn and Daisy Chain among its five stops, and the paper reported plans for it to return the following summer.
Three things date an older Edmonton list. Mandolin Books & Coffee Company, the Highlands shop at 6419 112 Avenue, announced it would close for good in September 2024 after more than 20 years, the Edmonton Journal reported on August 28, 2024. Wee Book Inn is down to two addresses, and its own page of past shop cats still remembers a Stony Plain Road store and Calgary branches that no longer appear among its locations. And several names that crowd Edmonton bookstore roundups are not secondhand shops: Audreys downtown sells new books by its own account, while Magpie in Ritchie and the romance-only Book Boudoir show no used stock in their Extravaganza profiles, so none of them is on this page.
Used bookstoresWee Book Inn (Old Strathcona)
10310 82 Ave NW, Edmonton, AB T6E 1Z8
The Whyte Avenue half of a locally owned pair that calls itself Edmonton's premier used bookshop since 1971, open from nine in the morning until half past eleven at night on all seven days, per the chain's locations page. It buys, sells and trades books, films and music, leans hardest on mass-market pocket fiction, and runs a free request list visible at both stores for titles nobody has brought in yet, with single-issue comics, single-issue manga and car repair manuals left off it. Its 2026 Extravaganza profile names two shop cats, Yvan and Belle, on this floor, and the chain warns that the building has stairs and no elevator. The Edmonton Journal listed it among five stops on the Novel Night Events bus tour of indie shops scheduled for Saturday, August 15, 2026.
Hours: Mon–Sun 9am–11:30pmWebsite Antiquarian bookstoreThe Edmonton Book Store
10533 82 Ave NW, Edmonton, AB T6E 2A3
An antiquarian dealer on Whyte Avenue since 1978 that belongs to ABAC, the Canadian antiquarian trade body, as well as ILAB and the National Archival Appraisal Board, with more than 80,000 volumes in the shop and specialties in Western Canada, the Arctic, military history, signed Canadian literature and art. More than 30,000 of them are catalogued online through AbeBooks, Alibris, Amazon.ca and Biblio, so a search or a phone call beats a speculative trip for one particular title. It says it is always buying and pays fair prices for quality books, and it offers a downloadable guide for families clearing an estate. Its profile on the Edmonton Indie Bookstore Extravaganza site is dated March 27, 2026, a month before it took part in the third edition.
Hours: Mon–Sat 10am–5:30pm, Sun noon–5pmWebsite Used bookstoresPorch Light Books
9867 89 Ave NW, Edmonton, AB T6E 3Y3
On the corner of 99 Street in Mill Creek, a used-and-new shop that author and publisher Michael Hingston launched online in 2020 and moved into a storefront in 2024; by its own account most of the stock is used, in condition close to new, alongside a curated run of new titles and a table of rotating remainders. Its buying terms are published: up to 30 percent of estimated resale value in cash or up to 40 percent in store credit, depending on condition, rarity, demand and copies already on hand, with purchases made only from Wednesday to Friday between 11 and 6 and never on weekends. The shelves favour literary fiction, arts and culture, nature, history, books about books, vintage paperbacks, small presses and box sets. Daily Hive put it first in its May 4, 2026 guide to Edmonton's new and used bookstores.
Hours: Mon–Sat 11am–6pm, Sun 11am–4pmWebsite Used bookstore & coffee barPaper Birch Books
10825 95 St NW, Edmonton, AB T5H 2E2
In a strip mall facing Giovanni Caboto Park in McCauley's Little Italy, a used-and-new bookstore with a licensed coffee bar, opened in December 2022 by Benjamin Hertwig and Céline Chuang and curated toward the literary, the leftist, theory and queer writing. Selling works by appointment: email a list of titles or photos of the spines, give the two-person team as long as seven days to answer, and expect up to 30 percent of the shop's listed price in cash or 35 percent in credit, which it says comes to around $2–$3 per mass-market paperback, with thrillers, business, self-help, cookbooks and encyclopedias declined. The buy desk stayed shut for all of August 2026 while the owners dealt with house repairs, and the selling page asked people to write again in September. Chuang told the Edmonton Journal in April 2026 that the shop sets out far more $5 books than usual for Extravaganza weekend.
Hours: Mon–Fri 10am–6pm, Sat 10am–5pm, Sun 11am–5pmWebsite Used bookstoresBailey Books
29-B Rowland Crescent, St. Albert, AB T8N 4B2
In St. Albert, in the Riel Business Park near where the city meets Edmonton at the Henday, a father-and-daughter used bookstore that specializes in signed, first and collectible editions and where Barry Bailey, trained at the American Academy of Bookbinding, also rebinds and repairs worn volumes. The Edmonton Journal profile of April 16, 2026 tells how his daughter Lisa talked him out of closing, moved home from the coast and took the shop fully retail, and quotes him saying Tolkien never stays on the shelf for long. For sellers the useful service is estates: the Baileys will come to a house in St. Albert or nearby, look over a collection in person and make an offer. Its events calendar lists author signings on Saturday, October 10 and Saturday, October 24, 2026.
Hours: Tue–Wed 11am–7pm, Thu–Fri 11am–5pm, Sat 10am–5pm, Sun noon–5pm; closed MonWebsite Where can I find cheap used books in Edmonton?
The libraries set the floor. Strathcona County Library in Sherwood Park prices adult paperbacks, teen books and children's books at 50 cents at its seasonal sales, the next of them on November 14, 2026, and keeps a sale section near the Teen Zone in between. EPL's Books2Buy sale at the Milner charges $1 for paperbacks and children's titles and $3 for hardcovers, and turns its Sunday afternoon into a $10 fill-a-box sale; the next one runs December 4 to 6, 2026. Among the charity shops, CTV News Edmonton saw books priced at two dollars or under at the MCC store on 51 Avenue in May 2025, and Bissell Thrift on 118 Avenue knocks a fifth off for over-55s every Tuesday. For a bargain table at an independent, Paper Birch said in April 2026 that it lays out extra $5 books for Extravaganza weekend.
Where do I sell used books in Edmonton?
Start with Porch Light Books in Mill Creek from Wednesday to Friday, which pays cash or a larger credit against its estimated resale value, then email Paper Birch Books with a title list to book an appointment. For collectible Western Canadiana, Arctic material or signed Canadian literature, call the Edmonton Book Store on Whyte Avenue, and for a full estate in the St. Albert area, Bailey Books makes house calls. If store credit suits you, the Bookworm in Sherwood Park and both Daisy Chain shops accept trade-ins, and Wee Book Inn will look at a bag over the counter at either location. Before any of those trips, photograph each shelf with BiblioScan: it recognizes the spines in one picture and shows a resale value for every title, so you can pull the few titles worth putting up under your own name on Kijiji, Facebook Marketplace, Amazon.ca or AbeBooks and box the rest for a shop counter.
When is the big library book sale in Edmonton?
The Edmonton Public Library's Books2Buy sale is the big downtown one, staged downstairs at the Milner; its next edition opens on Friday, December 4, 2026 and closes with a box sale on Sunday, December 6, following editions on March 6–8 and September 11–13, 2026. The Sherwood Park library of Strathcona County holds a sale each season, with the fall edition set for Saturday, November 14, 2026, then again in mid-February and at the end of May 2027. St. Albert's library held its autumn sale over five days in mid-September 2026 in the foyer of St. Albert Place, and no follow-up date has been posted.
Which day is best for book hunting in Edmonton?
Saturday. All the shops listed here with published hours open their doors that day, Alhambra Books included, whose week runs Tuesday through Saturday. Sunday loses Alhambra, the SHAVA bookstore in St. Albert, the MCC thrift store, County Clothes-Line and Christian Book & Record, and Monday closes Alhambra and Bailey Books. If you are selling, go midweek, since Porch Light only buys from Wednesday to Friday. For an evening run, Wee Book Inn on Whyte Avenue stays open until 11:30 every night, SHAVA until 8 on weekdays, and MCC and County Clothes-Line until at least 8 on Thursdays.