Green Bay puts its densest run of secondhand shelving downtown by the Fox River, then thins out fast across Brown County. Downtown carries three of the addresses below inside an easy walk: Lion's Mouth on North Washington Street, the Attic on Bodart Street in the Olde Main District, and the Central Library over on Pine, whose volunteer group empties two floors of donated stock three times a year. West of the river, Military Avenue holds the paperback exchange; east, Weise Street holds a pay-by-weight outlet. Then it is out to Ashwaubenon and down to De Pere, and both of those entries name their own municipality in the opening line.
The shelves are not interchangeable. Book Stop is a volume operation, tens of thousands of used paperbacks at half of cover, run as a swap counter rather than a shop that pays. Lion's Mouth blends new releases, secondhand copies, a children's room and an espresso machine into one historic brick storefront. The Attic keeps a small hardcover selection between the coffee and the loose-leaf tea, while De Pere's Pages and Pours pairs art books, framed antiquarian maps and rare out-of-print copies with the wine list. If you want cheap bulk instead, the two thrift entries and the November library sale are the ones worth emptying a trunk for.
Three details go stale fast on a round-up of this city. Anyone hunting the Reader's Loft on the west side is chasing a name that changed in 2019, when the store went downtown and became Lion's Mouth. The AbleLight thrift shop has left Military Avenue too, moving during 2025 to a new building in Ashwaubenon. And Half Price Books, which keeps turning up in regional searches, has no store in this city at all; the nearest one is out in the Fox Valley, and the drive is long enough to plan around.
Used bookstoresBook Stop
603 S Military Ave, Green Bay, WI 54303
West of the river in the Beacon Center strip on Military Avenue, a paperback exchange whose own site counts upward of 50,000 used titles, its used stock at half of the publisher's printed price, with a clearance section running 75 cents a book or ten for $5. The counter deals in credit and nothing else: 15 percent of retail on whatever it accepts, no money at any point, and a $4.00 floor under any book without a clearance tag. Its policies page, stamped May 22, 2026, sets out what comes straight back — cookbooks, health titles, Reader's Digest condensed volumes, textbooks, encyclopedias — and holds hardcovers to titles issued inside the past 24 months, jackets on, with exceptions available on request. The shop's About page puts its start at 1995 and reprints a Military Avenue News item on the handover to Bethe Lane and her father Scott Batterham, which the same page places in March 2022.
Hours : Mon–Fri 10am–5pm, Sat 10am–4pm; closed SunWebsite Used bookstoresLion's Mouth Bookstore
211 N Washington St, Green Bay, WI 54301
Exposed brick on North Washington Street, two blocks up from the Fox River City Deck, with new releases, secondhand copies, gifts and a cafe under one roof. The shop's own history runs it back to the Reader's Loft, over 20 years on the west side, sold in the fall of 2019 by Virginia Kress to bookseller Amy Mazzariello, relaunched downtown at 401 N. Washington, shifted to number 211 in October 2022 and fitted with the coffee counter in spring 2024. Selling here takes no phone call: leave one bag or one medium box whenever the store is trading, allow one to two weeks for the sort, then draw 25 percent of its list price in credit, which covers half the cost of a new book or three quarters of a used one. Encyclopedias, magazines, textbooks, Reader's Digest and Book of the Month printings are refused flat, library copies and cracked spines rarely get through, and the events calendar carried an educator discount evening on September 10, 2026 plus Books & Brews pop-ups at Badger State Brewing on September 17 and October 15.
Hours : Mon–Fri 9am–6pm, Sat 9am–5pm, Sun 10am–4pmWebsite Espresso bar with a secondhand roomThe Attic
730 Bodart St, Green Bay, WI 54301
The corner of Bodart and Jackson in the Olde Main District, where an espresso bar, a loose-leaf tea counter and a used book store share what the operator counts as over 3,000 square feet. The book half runs to hundreds of copies in like-new condition, mostly hardcovers still wearing their jackets, and the notice on the site is blunt: no buying for now, donations only. Those come in one small box at a time, or three to four boxes if you will stand by while a barista sorts them, with receiving from 7am to noon Tuesday through Thursday, 7am to 2pm Friday and 8am to 2pm on Saturday and Sunday. This guide publishes no schedule for the Attic, because the site carries two grids that contradict each other, one in the header and one headed Temporary Hours, so call 920-435-6515 first; the Art Wall page, full for 2025 and taking bookings for 2026, is the most recently dated thing on it.
Used bookstoresPages and Pours
415 Main Ave, De Pere, WI 54115
Down in De Pere, south of the Green Bay line, a wine bar built around bookshelves — the Press Times previewed it on February 23, 2025, three days ahead of opening. Its About page runs the stock from recent bestsellers and literary classics through art books to rare, out-of-print copies, while a separate page shows framed antiquarian maps from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Of everything listed here, this is the only address that hands a seller money: under 20 volumes, carry them in before 5pm on a trading day and Mark, Sheri or John will look and quote; over 20, email Mark and book a slot. Mass-market paperbacks, ex-library copies and anything with a serious defect are declined, donations are not taken at all — donors get redirected to De Pere Christian Outreach on Butler Street or the library's Kress branch — and the calendar carried a St. Norbert theology talk for Tuesday, September 22, 2026.
Hours : Tue 4pm–8pm, Wed–Thu 2pm–8pm, Fri noon–8pm, Sat 10am–8pm; closed Sun–MonWebsite Where can I find cheap used books in Green Bay?
Start with weight. St. Vincent de Paul's Dig & Save rings books up by weight, 65 cents to the pound, a rate the society posted on that store's page in October 2025. Book Stop keeps a clearance shelf at 75 cents, or ten books for $5, and prices the rest of the room at half the printed cover, with a $4.00 minimum on anything untagged. AbleLight runs a 25 percent Wednesday discount for shoppers 55 and over. And the library Friends group fills the Central Library with donated stock on November 9, 10 and 11, 2026, with the Monday reserved for Friends members and hardcovers marked $2 against $1 for paperbacks.
Where do I sell used books in Green Bay?
Three counters take stock, on three sets of terms. Book Stop is credit-only at 15 percent of the retail price, accepts a hardcover only when it was published in the past two years, and turns away cookbooks, health books, textbooks, encyclopedias and Reader's Digest condensed volumes. Lion's Mouth takes a single bag or a medium carton without an appointment, holds it for a week or two while the staff work through it, and pays a quarter of its own list price in credit. Pages and Pours in De Pere is the one that opens a register: under 20 books can be walked in on any open afternoon up to 5pm, more than that needs an appointment with Mark, and neither mass-market paperbacks nor ex-library copies get through. Weigh all three against selling the books on your own. A single photograph of a packed shelf, run through BiblioScan, returns a market price for every spine the app recognizes, and the split tends to fall out by itself — a handful you post under your own account, the rest into a carton for one of these counters.
When is the big library book sale in Green Bay?
November 9 through 11, 2026, at the Central Library, 515 Pine Street downtown, with the library's Friends group as organizer. Two lines on the posted grid decide which day you pick: the Monday is a members-only session, and the Wednesday runs on bag pricing instead of per-book prices. It says on its site that three such sales land in a year, spread across fall, spring and early summer, and that the 2027 spring dates are not yet fixed. One practical warning from the organizers: no boxes are handed out, so bring bags or crates of your own.
Which day is best for book hunting in Green Bay?
Saturday. Every storefront in this guide opens that day, and the downtown cluster sits close enough to do on foot before you drive out to Military Avenue or De Pere. Sunday cuts the list to four, since Book Stop is closed and Pages and Pours takes both Sunday and Monday off. Midweek has its own logic: Wednesday is the AbleLight discount day, Pages and Pours unlocks at 2pm on Wednesday and Thursday, and if the Attic is on your route, phone ahead, because its two published schedules disagree about whether Monday counts at all.