Most of the secondhand shelf space in Greenville County lines up along one short corridor, and what is left of it lands well away from there. Southeast of downtown, three of the eight entries below stand within a single mile of Laurens Road: Mr K's at Verdae Village, 2nd & Charles half a mile up the road, and Goodwill's SecondStory on Haywood Road past that. Downtown supplies one more, the Friends shop folded into the Hughes Main Library on Heritage Green. The other four need a car — north up Pleasantburg past the city limits to Angel's, then Travelers Rest at 8.4 miles, Simpsonville ten miles east-southeast, and Easley twelve miles west, over in Pickens County. Four of the eight sit outside the Greenville city limits, and each says where it stands in its first line.
Learn how each place pays before anything is loaded, because the three trade counters here work on different principles. Mr K's settles in colored paper slips and keeps cash for a set list of categories, requires a signature if you leave stock for evaluation, and claims whatever nobody collects after two days. 2nd & Charles takes in books and comics, records, discs, games and collectibles over a big-box desk that stops serving sellers sixty minutes before closing time. As The Page Turns, over in Travelers Rest, asks for two bags maximum with no appointment, pays between fifty cents and four dollars a book, and caps that credit at half of any used-book ticket. None of the other five publishes buying terms, so whatever these three hand back is a donation looking for a home.
Two things date an older Greenville roundup. The first is Fiction Addiction: FOX Carolina reported on April 3, 2025 that the shop, which had opened in 2001 as a used bookstore, was clearing its shelves, and it closed that May after 24 years, so any list still leading with it is stale. The second is a sorting problem: several of the book names a search for this county turns up sell new. M. Judson Booksellers occupies the old county courthouse on South Main and has a second shop in Fountain Inn; twelve miles west in Easley, Poor Richard's Booksellers has held the same Main Street building since 1987 while the Book Warehouse Outlet moves brand-new overstock at a discount. None of the three is a secondhand stop, and no branch of Half Price Books or McKay's exists anywhere in the state.
Used bookstoresMr K's Used Books, Music & More
101 Verdae Blvd Suite 320, Greenville, SC 29607
Verdae Village, a shopping center off Laurens Road roughly 3.7 miles southeast of downtown, holds the South Carolina member of a three-store family firm whose About page counts a thirtieth year in business during 2026, beside branches in Asheville, North Carolina and Johnson City, Tennessee. What a box earns is laid out on the chain's trade page: blue paper slips come from books and comics and buy nothing except used books and comics; green slips come from discs and current video games and buy anything free of a yellow price sticker; money is held for a named list running from unique titles and recent bestsellers through vinyl, manga, anime and collectibles. Nothing gets recorded digitally, so a partly spent slip is the entire record, and stock left behind for evaluation needs a signature, with anything uncollected after two days passing to the shop. A normal trade runs somewhere between fifteen and twenty minutes at the desk, and a full trunk warrants a phone call ahead.
Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–7pm, Sun noon–6pmWebsite Rare and antiquarian bookshopAngel's BookShoppe
2327-1 N Pleasantburg Dr, Greenville, SC 29609
Out on North Pleasantburg Drive past the Greenville city line, in the Pleasantburg Pointe strip: The Post and Courier sent Spencer Donovan here on July 15, 2025 and came back with a Latin Bible printed on handmade paper in 1556, a fairly recent biography of Denmark Vesey, late-1800s Darwin, settler histories of Greenville and Spartanburg, and a first edition of Tolkien's translation of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" kept in a purpose-made green box. Angel and Jerry Anderson run the place, and the paper files what they sell as rare, early-edition and antiquarian rather than ordinary secondhand. The shop's own site is a single page carrying a phone number, an email address and a note that the website and webstore are still being built, so nothing online reflects the shelves; the week printed on that page reads Wednesday to Saturday, ten to five.
Hours : Wed–Sat 10am–5pmWebsite Friends of the Library shopFriends Shop at Hughes Main Library
Hughes Main Library, 25 Heritage Green Pl, Greenville, SC 29601
Half a mile northwest of downtown, on the Heritage Green campus inside a main library that opened October 7, 2002, the Friends of the Greenville County Library System keep a shop their own volunteers staff and sort. Their page gives it three days, Wednesday through Friday from ten to three, and takes ten percent off everything a member buys there; the same page names the 2026-2027 board, with Joquita Burka chairing the shop committee and Sterling Laney as president. When the group needs more floor it moves into the building's meeting rooms instead, and the calendar dates the next of those to Friday, October 30, 2026, 2pm to 5pm for members, then 10am to 2pm for everyone on the Saturday. Park in the Heritage Green garage, where the first half hour costs nothing and each one after runs a dollar to a five-dollar daily ceiling, with weekends and weekday evenings after six free.
Hours : Wed–Fri 10am–3pmWebsite Used bookstoresAs The Page Turns
3 Plaza Dr, Travelers Rest, SC 29690
Up in Travelers Rest, in a small building the shop opened on October 1, 2025 after rent on South Main Street climbed — its story page walks through the whole arc, from the 800-square-foot room Lisa Nichols started in 2008 on used books and trade credit to Amy Williams taking the helm. The terms are published and blunt: two bags a visit, no appointment needed, fifty cents to four dollars a book depending on condition and how many copies are already shelved, credit valid only against used books and used puzzles, and never covering more than half a ticket. A notice the shop dated July 6, 2026 had children's and middle-grade titles temporarily refused for overabundance, while its FAQ puts used stock from about $6.75 for a mass-market paperback up to $18.75 and beyond for a recent hardback. Call 864-834-8100 before setting out: the current timetable exists only as an image in the site footer, and the last written version of it, an Instagram post of February 24, 2025, predates the move.
Where can I find cheap used books in Greenville?
Start with the nonprofit shelves rather than the trade counters. SecondStory, the Goodwill bookshop at 115 Haywood Road, opened on June 13, 2024 with prices announced from a dollar. The library Friends sell inside the Hughes Main Library downtown, Wednesday to Friday from 10am to 3pm, and cut ten percent for members. Over in Easley, The Open Book Project runs its nonprofit shop on East 1st Avenue three weekday mornings and again on Saturday, on the schedule it posted September 1, 2026. For a paying-shop comparison, As The Page Turns, up in Travelers Rest, posts its own used range, starting near $6.75 at the mass-market end and reaching $18.75 or more for a recent hardback, with store credit allowed to cover half.
Where do I sell used books in Greenville?
Three desks, three rulebooks. Mr K's out at Verdae Village finishes a trade inside twenty minutes, settling in blue and green paper slips and paying cash only against the categories its policy names — unique books, vinyl, comics and graphic novels, manga and anime, recent bestsellers and collectibles; stock left behind is signed for, and whatever nobody collects within two days becomes the shop's. 2nd & Charles on Laurens Road buys books, music, movies, games and collectibles, but its buyback desk stops sixty minutes before closing, which makes 7pm the real deadline. As The Page Turns in Travelers Rest wants no more than two bags per visit, takes no appointment, and pays fifty cents up to four dollars a title in credit good for half a used-book ticket. Triage the pile before you leave: photograph a shelf, let BiblioScan read a resale number off the spines it knows, and the split falls out on its own — a few to list yourself, the remainder for whichever desk will take them.
When is the Friends of the Library sale in Greenville?
The county has no one big sale — Greenville's library Friends move from branch to branch, and their page carries the dates. The fall 2026 pair begins at the Five Forks branch in Simpsonville on Friday, September 18 from 2pm to 5pm for members and on the Saturday from 10am to 3pm for everyone, then repeats at the Hughes Main Library on Friday, October 30 from 2pm to 5pm and on Saturday, October 31 from 10am to 2pm. You can join or renew on the spot, and that is what buys entry to either Friday afternoon. Outside those two weekends the Friends Shop inside Hughes Main does the same job permanently, on a Wednesday-through-Friday week that ends at three each afternoon.
Which day is best for book hunting in Greenville?
Saturday covers the most ground, at the cost of the Friends shop, which never opens on a weekend. It leaves you the two Laurens Road counters, Mr K's and 2nd & Charles, then Angel's up Pleasantburg until five, the Travelers Rest shop and the Easley nonprofit until 2pm. The middle of the week repays a second look: Wednesday and Thursday are the only two days on which both the Friends shop and The Open Book Project are open, and Angel's keeps a Wednesday-to-Saturday week of its own. Sunday leaves the two shops that publish a Sunday, Mr K's until 6pm and 2nd & Charles until 7pm, plus SecondStory if the week the Upstate Business Journal printed still holds, while Angel's, the Friends shop and Easley stay dark and Travelers Rest is reachable only by phone.