Las Cruces anchors the Mesilla Valley, and the ground taken in here runs about 37 miles out from it: Mesilla and University Park to the southwest and south, Doña Ana, Radium Springs, Rincon and Hatch up the Rio Grande, Organ out on US 70 to the northeast, and Vado, Berino, La Mesa and Chamberino down the valley. Anthony, Santa Teresa, Chaparral and Sunland Park lie nearer El Paso and belong with that city. For all that territory, the nine stops below sit inside the Las Cruces city limits, none of them farther than 1.3 miles from the COAS store on Main Street, and Bowlin's bookstore on the Mesilla plaza, which says nothing about used stock, turns up in the tips.
Settle what you plan to do with a full trunk before you drive in, because exactly one business on this page takes stock over a counter. COAS runs a trade desk at both of its addresses and settles in store credit, never money; credit opened at one shop spends at the other. Donations rather than purchases are what the Friends group and the four thrift stores handle, and Casa Camino Real lists through AbeBooks without publishing terms for sellers. Nothing on this page pays cash, which makes Las Cruces a buying town far more than a selling one.
Three separate things sink an out-of-date Las Cruces list. The cheapest room in the city did not exist before 2025: the Las Cruces Bulletin reported that the Friends opened Bearto's Book Den on January 7, 2025, and by June 1, 2026 the shop had gone from three days a week to six. Next comes the chain question, and the answer is flat — Half Price Books' own store directory covers 19 states, New Mexico is not among them, and running its store finder over a 300-mile radius from the city returns a single result, HPB Mesa in Arizona, about 296 miles away in a straight line. Last is The Book Faerie, still carried at 4225 Harrison Street by half the business directories in the state: its own Facebook description sells the place as internet-only, a Las Cruces Bulletin reader roundup of September 5, 2024 was still printing walk-in hours for it, and its bookfaerie.com address now resolves to an unrelated Swedish loan site, so no link for it appears below.
Used bookstoresCOAS Books
317 N Main St, Las Cruces, NM 88001
The flagship of a two-store family firm that grew out of COAS Publishing, the archaeology imprint Pat Beckett started here in 1973, and that its Our Story page says Mike and Veronica Beckett now run. Most of the floor is secondhand, with regional and out-of-print titles beside CDs, DVDs, vinyl, audiobooks and games, and the same page calls the business New Mexico's largest independent bookstore. Trading is credit only: bring in what you no longer want and the desk issues credit against other books and media, which a LasCruces.com feature published in January 2022 put at up to half of a purchase in any category. Look at the clock twice before driving over — the shop announced its current Sunday opening from November 9, 2025 on Facebook and the Las Cruces Sun-News covered a vintage typewriter sale here on December 13, 2025, yet the website still prints a 6pm weekday close where the Facebook hours, the directories and a Las Cruces Bulletin bookstore roundup of September 5, 2024 all give 7pm.
Hours: Mon–Fri 10am–7pm, Sat 9am–6pm, Sun 11am–6pmWebsite Bookstore, gallery and archiveCasa Camino Real
314 S Tornillo St, Las Cruces, NM 88001
An adobe that its own Facebook posts put on the Camino Real in the Mesquite Historical District, 0.41 miles east-southeast of COAS, kept by the writer Denise Chávez — the 2026 Southern New Mexico Book Festival names her as the owner in its booksellers listing. Its AbeBooks storefront, selling under this name since September 2012, describes new, used, first edition and out-of-print stock built around Southwestern, borderland, Native American, Chicano and Latino writing in English, Spanish and bilingual editions, alongside vintage vinyl and Mexican folk art, and mentions estate collections in geology and photography still being put online. Opening is the one thing it does not state the same way twice: the header of its Facebook page reads by appointment, a post from that page on November 6, 2025 gives Thursday through Saturday, noon to 5pm, and by appointment, an August 2024 post gave 11am to 5pm across those same three days, and the Bulletin roundup of September 5, 2024 printed Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 5pm. Phone ahead, and expect a house full of shelves rather than a shop floor.
Friends of the Library bookstoreBearto's Book Den
Thomas Branigan Memorial Library, 200 E Picacho Ave, Las Cruces, NM 88001
A volunteer shop fitted into the computer lab on the ground floor of Thomas Branigan Memorial Library, 0.34 miles north of the COAS flagship. The Las Cruces Bulletin, writing on March 17, 2025, dated the opening to January 7, 2025, credited a naming contest that borrowed the library's Douglas fir bear carving, and quoted manager Dolores Tellez on a stock of fiction and nonfiction, southwest, large print, coffee table books, DVDs and shelves for children and young adults, mostly donated, with magazines, textbooks and VHS turned away. It began on a three-day week, and the Friends announced on May 26, 2026 that from June 1 it would open six days, 10:15am to 4pm. Receipts go back into library programs; the $26 million bond on the November 3, 2026 ballot would give the shop a room of its own beside a new cafe, and the Friends' own FAQ expects library services to move to a temporary site for most of an 18-to-24-month build once the bonds sell, which it forecasts for March 2027.
Hours: Mon–Sat 10:15am–4pmWebsite Where can I find cheap used books in Las Cruces?
Start inside Thomas Branigan Memorial Library. Bearto's Book Den, the Friends' shop in the ground-floor computer lab, sells donated novels and nonfiction, southwest and large-print shelves, art books, discs and children's titles six days a week, and the Friends' Bag Day there on October 24, 2026 charges a flat $8 for whatever fits in one of their brown bags. Away from the library, the La Casa Thrift Store lineup for the week of October 19, 2026 opened Monday and Tuesday at half off the whole store, the Savers on North Main cuts 30% on Tuesdays for shoppers of 55 and up (red tags, which mark new goods, do not count), and the parish store on Idaho rotates sales across its colored tags. COAS on Main Street has the biggest secondhand stock on this page, though not the cheapest shelf.
Where do I sell used books in Las Cruces?
Among the stops below, a single counter buys, and it pays in trade credit. COAS takes books, textbooks, CDs, DVDs, vinyl and audiobooks at 317 North Main Street and at 1101 South Solano Drive, and the credit issued at either address spends at both; a January 2022 LasCruces.com piece put it at as much as half of a given purchase. Every other name here is a donation route, not a buyer — the Branigan Library Friends, La Casa, Savers, St. Vincent de Paul and Safe Haven all stock their shelves from gifts, and Casa Camino Real sells through AbeBooks without publishing seller terms. Half Price Books, the usual fallback across the Southwest, has no New Mexico store at all. Do the sorting at the kitchen table first: one photograph of a filled shelf, and BiblioScan hands back what every spine it identifies is worth secondhand, so sixty seconds of work marks out the volumes to sell on your own and the rest to carry across the COAS desk.
When is the Friends of the Library sale in Las Cruces?
One group runs them all, the Friends of Thomas Branigan Memorial Library, and in 2026 they used the library's Roadrunner Room at 200 East Picacho Avenue for a spring, a summer and a fall sale, the last of them from October 15 to 17. Day one of each is a members-only preview, and newcomers can join on the spot for $15 a year. The fall round came in below the group's other seasonal sales and left the stockroom full, so the next chance comes on Saturday, October 24, 2026: a Bag Day inside Bearto's that wraps up at 1pm. Between seasonal dates the Friends put on one-day pop-ups when donations pile up, announced on their events page ahead of time — April 18, May 16 and August 15 in 2026 — and Bearto's keeps that donated stock on sale year-round, six days a week in the same building.
Which day is best for book hunting in Las Cruces?
Saturday, and start early. It is the one day COAS unlocks at 9am downtown, Bearto's Book Den and the Solano branch both keep their normal Saturday, La Casa, Savers and Safe Haven open all day, and Casa Camino Real falls inside the Thursday-to-Saturday window its own November 6, 2025 post gives; St. Vincent de Paul joins in only on its monthly Saturday morning. Sunday thins the field to two addresses, COAS on Main until 6pm and Savers until 8pm. Midweek has its own logic if you are hunting bargains rather than titles: Savers holds its senior discount for Tuesday, and La Casa saves its student and senior half-price day for Wednesday.