McKay's is gone, and every list of this city written before 2026 is now wrong at the top. The Papermill Place warehouse that absorbed East Tennessee's secondhand paper for four decades shut on Sunday, May 3, 2026, and the chain's own notice sends Knoxville customers to Chattanooga or Nashville instead. What is left is smaller, older and better hidden. Downtown carries two of them a short walk apart, the volunteers' shop tucked inside Lawson McGhee Library on West Church Avenue and Addison's two floors on South Gay Street; north of them the Book Eddy opens three afternoons on Broadway; south, a 300-booth flea mall on Chapman Highway carries the same bookseller's overflow; west, a romance shop off Northshore Drive keeps a used run; and two more sit down in Maryville, each flagged as such in its opening line below.
There is almost nowhere left to sell a carton, and that is the honest headline. The Book Eddy is the sole buying desk in this guide that still works the way a bookseller works, reached by calling John Coleman rather than by pulling a ticket and filling a tote. Addison's was fielding the question within two weeks of the closure announcement and said publicly that it was still working out an answer, so make the call before the trunk gets loaded. Everything else that stocks cheaply here runs on donations: the county library's own Friends group runs a book-donation program, Blount County's Friends take theirs in bins at the back of the Maryville library parking lot, and the KARM thrift chain takes whatever fits its published rules. For a reseller that inverts the usual arithmetic — buying here is cheap and easy, exiting a pile is the hard part.
Two habits will save you a wasted drive. The first is checking the chain locators before you assume a chain is here: the Tennessee page on the Half Price Books site carries a single store, and it is in Nashville, while 2nd & Charles lists Chattanooga as its only Tennessee address. The second is separating the new-book revival from the secondhand trade, because Knoxville has had a genuine one and the two get filed together. Union Ave Books told WVLT on March 5, 2026 that it sold used stock for several years before the pandemic, dropped it on capacity grounds and would not be changing back; Fable Hollow on Tazewell Pike, the Bookshop at The Bottom on East Magnolia, Mis Amores on Central Avenue Pike and the Hive, which WUOT reported in July 2026 had opened two months earlier, all sell new. A scanner earns nothing on any of those shelves.
Friends of the Library bookstoreFriends @ Rothrock Used Book Shop
Lawson McGhee Library, 500 W Church Ave, Knoxville, TN 37902
A volunteer-run storefront just inside the doors of Lawson McGhee Library downtown, stocked with donated books and settled at a register that takes cash, checks or cards, with a free bin beside it. The ceiling is the reason to start here: the Friends of the Knox County Public Library state that most items, specially priced books aside, are $3 or less. Their own book-sales page sets the week at 11am to 2pm Monday through Saturday and adds two closures worth knowing — the room follows the library's own dark days, and it also shuts on any Saturday the University of Tennessee has a home football game — while one book-sale directory still circulates a 10:30–4:30 grid with Sunday afternoons attached, which the group itself does not publish. The same site carries a sale calendar reaching from a Farragut weekend on September 11 and 12, 2026 to a Bearden pair on the 4th and 5th of December, plus an eBay account under friendsknoxcountylibrary that the group says holds its higher-priced books and series.
Hours : Mon–Sat 11am–2pm; closed SunWebsite Used bookstoresAddison's
126 S Gay St, Knoxville, TN 37902
Two floors of rare, used and antiquarian stock on South Gay Street, inside the Commerce Building, which the store dates to 1891: first editions and vintage titles running from classic literature through science fiction to history on the main floor, an eclectic mix of books and magazines in the lower room. Brian Worley, who spent 37 years in nuclear engineering at Oak Ridge National Laboratory before opening it, works alongside curator Jeff Johnson on material running from early Latin texts to signed East Tennessee writers such as James Agee and Cormac McCarthy, and counts among his sales a 1538 Caesar's Commentaries stamped with five centuries of owners' names. Worley said in a WVLT report dated March 5, 2026 that people had already begun asking whether he buys used books, and that the store was working through how to meet part of that demand while staying clear about what it looks for — so treat this as a phone call, not a carload. Its own blog was still publishing on June 22, 2026.
Hours : Tue–Sat 10am–6pm, Sun noon–5pm; closed MonWebsite Used bookstoresThe Book Eddy
3804 N Broadway, Knoxville, TN 37917
John Coleman has dealt in secondhand books, rarities and out-of-print oddities under this name since 1991, and the shop now sits on North Broadway in Whittle Springs, a block along from Lost and Found Records. When Knox News asked on February 26, 2026 where people were supposed to sell books once the big warehouse went, this was the answer it printed, and selling here still means reaching Coleman on 865-573-9959 rather than pulling a ticket. What lands on his desk is the appeal: a post of July 15, 2026 ran through a Larry McMurtry collection, a batch of State Department passports, Milt Klein offprints and a leaflet promoting DDT and Agent Orange. Read the days twice — the Facebook page that carries the Broadway address and was still posting on September 1, 2026 gave the standing week as Thursday 1 to 5, Friday noon to 5 and Saturday 11 to 5 back on July 23, while a large directory leaves the Thursday off, and so does the Instagram bio the shop writes itself, which offers an appointment in its place.
Hours : Thu 1–5pm, Fri noon–5pm, Sat 11am–5pm; closed Sun–WedWebsite Used bookstoresSouthland Books and Cafe
1505 E Broadway Ave, Maryville, TN 37804
Thirteen miles south, in Maryville, and a business that bills itself as the oldest and largest used and new bookstore in Blount County: Lisa Misosky has kept it on East Broadway since 1992. The Atlantic gave it a long report in its August 2026 issue, mostly about a church across the street that declared the place a demonic stronghold, and put the room on the page along the way: bookcase after bookcase running from a leather-bound Twain to a Bukowski paperback, a military-history wall and a flyer for the local mah-jongg group. Four businesses share the building on four separate clocks, so a Monday visit gets you the bookstore and the lunch cafe and nothing else, while the Dungeon of dead-media movies, games and music opens at noon from Tuesday and the Bird & the Book starts at four. The eBay listings scrolling down its front page, an 1884 Masonic imprint at $349.95 among them, show where the top of the stock goes.
Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–6pm; closed SunWebsite Friends bookstore and quarterly saleBlount County Friends of the Library
Blount County Public Library, 508 N Cusick St, Maryville, TN 37804
Also down in Maryville, on North Cusick Street, and the one date in this guide that its organizers size in five figures. Four times a year the Friends fill the library's lower level with more than 50,000 books, DVDs, children's titles, local history and cookbooks, most of it carrying a one- or two-dollar sticker and a good share of it at fifty cents; the fall 2026 edition opened on September 3 and ran through the 6th, with the opening Thursday held for members who can sign up at the elevator door on the way in, and cards taken at the table. Between those weekends the Friends' Bookstore trades upstairs on the main floor every day of the week, with further shelves in the Bookmark Cafe and the children's section. Their eBay account shows positive feedback across more than 30,000 sales, which is the usual warning: the rarities were listed online long before a table went up.
Hours : September 3–6, 2026Website Where can I find cheap used books in Knoxville?
The volunteer shop at Lawson McGhee Library sets the floor of the market: most of what it holds costs $3 or less, specially priced books aside, and there is a free bin by the door on top of that. Down in Maryville the Blount County Friends put most of a 50,000-item sale at one or two dollars, and a good part of it at fifty cents, and keep a permanent bookstore on the library's main level between those weekends. The branch sales price the same donated stock — Halls on October 10 and Cedar Bluff on November 13 and 14, 2026 are the next two after Farragut — and the KARM thrift floors apply thrift pricing six days a week, Sunday excepted. For volume rather than price, the 300 booths on Chapman Highway are open every day of the week.
Where do I sell used books in Knoxville?
Honestly: to one person, and over the phone. Only the Book Eddy still buys the way a dealer buys, and its own listings give the contact as John Coleman on 865-573-9959. Addison's owner said in a March 5, 2026 WVLT report that customers had already started asking, and that he was still working out how much of that demand to take on and what kind of books the store would look for, so call first and bring the good ones rather than the box. Everyone else here is donation-fed — the two Friends groups, the KARM chain — which pays nothing but does clear a house. Before any of that, sort at home: photograph the shelf spine-out, let BiblioScan price every spine it recognizes at what that edition is fetching today, and the pile splits inside a minute: the few that earn a listing of your own, and a remainder that is genuinely only fit for a donation box.
When is the Friends of the Library sale in Knoxville?
No single date carries the county — the Knox County Public Library's Friends rotate it around the branches and publish the whole year. What remains of 2026 is Farragut on September 11 and 12, Halls on October 10, Karns on October 24, Cedar Bluff on the 13th and 14th of November, and Bearden on December 4 and 5, each 10am to 5pm. The year-round equivalent is the Friends @ Rothrock Used Book Shop at Lawson McGhee Library, 500 W Church Ave, open between 11am and 2pm from Monday to Saturday, and dark on any Saturday with a University of Tennessee home game on it. Out of the county, the Blount County Friends run a quarterly sale in Maryville that they size above 50,000 items.
Which day is best for book hunting in Knoxville?
Saturday, by a distance, because it is the one day everything that keeps a schedule is trading: Addison's until six, the Rothrock shop for its three-hour window, the Book Eddy from eleven, Southland in Maryville until six, Good Girl Books until seven, the flea mall all day and every KARM floor until nine. Every branch sale listed here falls on a Saturday too, whether it runs one day or two. Thursday is the sensible second choice, since it is the only other day the Book Eddy unlocks and the day the Maryville quarterly sale opens for members. Avoid Monday, when Addison's and Good Girl Books are both closed and the Book Eddy has been shut since Saturday.