Two cities do the work in central Arkansas, and the Arkansas River runs between them. On the Little Rock side, the library system cut the ribbon on Library Square Books at 405 President Clinton Ave on August 20, 2026, and Paper Hearts holds a corner of Pettaway Square down in the near south end. Cross the bridge into North Little Rock, which answers to its own city hall rather than to Little Rock's, and the density jumps: Beautywood on North Main, Books By The Pound in a converted warehouse near the riverfront, The Book Store up the hill in Park Hill. Every North Little Rock entry below opens by saying so.
Exactly one shop in central Arkansas prints its buy rates where a stranger can read them, at least among everything checked for this page, and that alone justifies the drive over the river. Beautywood publishes a trade-in policy with actual numbers on it: 25 cents a pound in cash or 50 cents a pound in credit for ordinary stock, or an individual assessment at 20 percent of online resale value for recent fiction, obscure nonfiction and textbooks. The Book Store trades too, but settles in store credit only and turns away textbooks outright. Paper Hearts states flatly that its secondhand shelves come from donations, and the library system routes its intake through branch drop-offs rather than any desk that pays.
Three things trip up older listings. River Market Books & Gifts at 120 River Market Ave ran from 2001 to 2021 and its successor, Galleries & Bookstore at Library Square, shut in 2023 during the Main Library renovation — the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette walked through that whole chain on August 20, 2026 when the replacement opened. The warehouse sales that CALS ran at the Port Industrial Hub went pop-up in 2026, landing at the Roberts Library in January and at a bar on West 7th in March. And the shops this metro is best known for sell new: 501 LIFE's April 2026 rundown of the Rock Cities Book Crawl lists eight participating stores, and only three of the eight carry secondhand stock at all.
Library-run used bookstoreLibrary Square Books
405 President Clinton Ave, Little Rock, AR 72201
The Central Arkansas Library System reopened its secondhand shop on August 20, 2026 in the River Market space that 4Square Cafe & Gifts used to hold, three years after the previous version closed. Pricing is a flat ladder and the library publishes it: $2 for Step into Reading titles, $4 for paperbacks and children's books, $8 for hardcovers, with rare material priced one copy at a time. Executive director Nate Coulter told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that hundreds of donated books reach a branch every week, which is the supply line feeding these shelves. Jessica Scott, who runs both the store and the system's sale events, joined CALS in May 2026 and was given a free hand to rebuild it.
Hours : Wed–Fri noon–5pm, Sat noon–4pmWebsite Used bookstoresBeautywood Books
1704 N Main St, North Little Rock, AR 72114
Over in North Little Rock, on the North Main strip above Argenta, this is the one address in central Arkansas that posts what it pays. Its trade-in page offers a weigh-and-pay rate of 25 cents per pound in cash or 50 cents per pound in credit, plus an individual assessment worth 20 percent of a title's online resale value — the route it recommends for fiction published inside the last two years, for obscure nonfiction, and the only route by which it will take textbooks at all. The same page says the shop prices every book at the lowest resale value it can find online, and refuses magazines, encyclopedias, dated textbooks, mildewed or smoke-heavy copies and anything carrying insects; three separate opening grids appear across its own website and Facebook page, so phone 501-487-4323 before you drive. It was one of eight stores on the April 25, 2026 Rock Cities Book Crawl route printed by 501 LIFE.
Used bookstoresThe Book Store
3832 John F Kennedy Blvd, North Little Rock, AR 72116
Also North Little Rock, up in Park Hill at the LakeHill Shopping Center, where owner Rebecca keeps what the shop's own pages call 40,000-plus used books after a career in IT and marketing. Its FAQ dates the business to 1976 in central Arkansas, puts general pricing at roughly half of cover, and describes a store-credit trade program: bring books any business day, expect Saturday drop-offs to wait up to seven days for a valuation, and do not bother with textbooks because the curriculum turns over faster than the shelves. The same FAQ names the cheapest window on this page in the operator's own words — a $1 paperback and $2 hardback sale that runs in the warehouse space on each month's opening Saturday. Local author David Weekley signed there from 10am to 2pm on June 6, 2026.
Hours : Mon 1–6pm, Tue–Wed 10am–4:30pm, Thu 10am–6pm, Fri 10am–4:30pm, Sat 10am–3pm; closed SunWebsite Books sold by weightBooks By The Pound
601 W 4th St, North Little Rock, AR 72114
Downtown North Little Rock, a block off the river and within sight of Dickey-Stephens Park, in what Arkansas Business described on October 29, 2025 as a nearly 10,000-square-foot vacant building formerly occupied by a staffing agency and a food truck court. The Searcy original built the model and the company still explains it on its About page: stock priced from $1.75 a pound or $35 for a box holding 40 to 50 pounds, plus wholesale lots for small vendors working out of the same 28,000-square-foot processing warehouse. The North Little Rock front page advertises a 10,000-square-foot warehouse of books alongside DVDs, CDs and vinyl. Weigh the box, not the titles — the economics only work if you scan before you fill it.
Hours : Mon–Tue 10am–7pm, Wed 10am–5pm, Thu–Sat 10am–7pm, Sun noon–6pmWebsite Where can I find cheap used books in Little Rock?
A dollar is the bottom of this market, and the dollar keeps moving. The Book Store in North Little Rock opens a warehouse room once a month, paperbacks a dollar and hardcovers two, which is the cheapest published number anywhere here, and the library system priced its January 2026 tabletop sale on the same $1 and $2 ladder. Books By The Pound prices off a scale instead, $1.75 a pound or $35 a full box, so volume beats any per-title tag once the box is heavy enough. Above that sit Library Square Books at $4 a paperback and $8 a hardcover, and Beautywood, which sets its tags at the lowest resale value it can find online.
Where do I sell used books in Little Rock?
Beautywood Books on North Main in North Little Rock, and realistically nowhere else for cash. It weighs ordinary stock at 25 cents a pound and pays double that in credit, or assesses individual titles at 20 percent of online resale value, which is the route it steers recent fiction, obscure nonfiction and textbooks toward. The Book Store, a mile and a half north, takes trades on any business day but settles in store credit against its own shelves and declines textbooks; the library system, Paper Hearts and Our House all take donations instead. Do the triage at home rather than at the counter. Photograph the bookcase before it becomes boxes, feed the shot to BiblioScan, and it hands back a live marketplace price for every spine legible in the frame — the number that separates a copy worth your own listing from one destined for a scale.
Which day is best for book hunting in Little Rock?
The Saturday that opens the month, without much argument. That is the one day The Book Store opens its warehouse at $1 and $2, and Saturday is also the only day Library Square Books, Books By The Pound, Beautywood and both Our House floors are all trading at once. Watch the closing times, though, because Saturday is short here: the library store shuts at 4pm, The Book Store at 3pm, Our House in Little Rock at 4pm. Sunday strips the map down to Books By The Pound from noon and whatever Beautywood happens to be doing that week.
When is the big library book sale in Little Rock?
There is no fixed date, which was still true when this page was rechecked on September 2, 2026. The Central Arkansas Library System ran two editions in 2026 rather than one warehouse weekend — a tabletop sale at the Roberts Library on January 9 and a curated pop-up at White Water Tavern on March 18 — and at the opening of Library Square Books on August 20 the manager said the sales would return later in the year without setting a date. The big-format version historically lands at the Port Industrial Hub on Sloane Drive, southeast of downtown past the airport. Donations are what feed it, so if you want the pile sorted your way, the branch drop-off rules cap you at ten sealed boxes a day, none over 50 pounds.