Where to buy used books in Los Angeles

Updated 9/1/2026

Los Angeles does not hand you a book district. What it has instead is roughly five clusters and a lot of freeway between them: Downtown and the eastside neighborhoods along Sunset and Glendale Boulevard, the Valley over the hill through Cahuenga Pass, Pasadena and the San Gabriel foothills to the east, the Westside from mid-city out to the ocean, and the South Bay strung along Hawthorne and Redondo Beach boulevards. Plan a run by cluster and you can hit five or six shops in a day. Plan it by shop and you will spend the day on the 101.

The other thing to know is jurisdictional. Half the addresses below are not in the City of Los Angeles at all — Pasadena, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Culver City, West Hollywood, Monterey Park, Gardena, Torrance and Glendale are separate municipalities wrapped inside the same metro, each with its own library system, its own Friends group and its own parking enforcement. That fragmentation is why the county has so many library-run bookstores and so few chains: Half Price Books does not operate in California, which leaves Book-Off as the only volume buyer and everything else independent.

The scene has also been moving fast. The Last Bookstore, for years the one address every visitor was handed, now runs three shops around the metro — Spring Street, a half-million-volume Valley store on Lankershim that opened in December 2024, and a quieter one out in Montrose. The Eaton fire of January 2025 hit the Pasadena and Altadena book trade personally, and the first Los Angeles Indie Book Crawl ran across thirteen stores over the last weekend of July 2026. Anything you read about this city's bookstores that predates 2025 is worth re-checking before you drive.

Spot map

The best spots

Used bookstores

The Last Bookstore

453 S Spring St, Los Angeles, CA 90013

Two floors of a former bank on Spring Street, marble columns and vault doors intact, with a tunnel of books on the mezzanine and a wall of dollar paperbacks beside it. Time Out ranked it first among the city's independents on April 23, 2026, singling out that $1 shelf and the artist gallery upstairs. One thing to check before you drive in: the chain's contact page gives 11am–8pm seven days here, while its own Downtown page splits the week into Monday and Tuesday 11am–8pm, Wednesday to Saturday 10am–11pm. New, used and rare share the same aisles, and the counter takes books and records in trade.

Website

Used bookstores

The Iliad Bookshop

5400 Cahuenga Blvd, North Hollywood, CA 91601

Nothing here is new: 150,000 volumes by the shop's own count, weighted toward literature and the arts but running much wider by subject. Two cats, Zeus and Apollo, work the aisles, and there is a lot behind the store plus a bike rack facing the Chandler path. The shop posts its street address and its phone line and no hours whatsoever; Time Out's April 2026 listing had it open Tuesday to Saturday, 11am–7pm, so call 818-509-2665 if you are coming over the hill.

Website

Used bookstores

The Last Bookstore, Studio City

4437 Lankershim Blvd, North Hollywood, CA 91602

The Valley outpost opened in December 2024, covered by the Los Angeles Times ahead of opening day, and Patton Oswalt built a Sunday around it in the same paper in June 2026. Half a million books, per Time Out, laid out over quiet connecting rooms instead of the Downtown crush — same buying operation, a fraction of the foot traffic. The address says North Hollywood because the corner of Lankershim and Riverside is where Studio City, North Hollywood and Toluca Lake meet.

Hours : Sun 10am–7pm, Mon–Thu 10am–8pm, Fri–Sat 10am–11pmWebsite

Used bookstores

A Good Used Book

307 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90026

Jenny and her partner spent years as a traveling stall — Melrose Trading Post, the Rose Bowl flea, Grand Central Market — before landing this Echo Park Village storefront, which is the story their about page tells. The stock is secondhand and ruthlessly picked: bins of shrink-wrapped paperbacks in near-mint shape that you flip like records, plus a thin shelf of new editions. Time Out credited it in April 2026 with the weekend maker markets it hosts out front, which is what turned a shop into a fixture.

Website

Used bookstores

Book Alley

1252 E Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91106

Pasadena is its own city, and this has been its general secondhand-and-new bookshop since 1992, deep enough to keep separate shelves in French, German, Japanese and Spanish next to the manga and the local-history wall. Tom Rogers has owned it since 2004; the Pasadena Star-News reported on January 17, 2025 that he lost his Altadena house in the Eaton fire and that his own staff set up a fundraiser while he kept working the floor. No opening times appear on the storefront or on its Shopify site, so ring 626-683-8083 before you commit to the 210.

Website

All spots by type

Used bookstores

Lost Books

2233 Honolulu Ave, Montrose, CA 91020

Out in Montrose, a foothill village inside the City of Glendale, the Last Bookstore runs a plant-filled sibling shop under its own name. Time Out framed it in April 2026 as the low-key version of the Spring Street original, a few doors from the 60-year-old children's store Once Upon a Time at number 2207. The parent company lists it separately on its contact page, with the latest Friday and Saturday closing of its three California shops.

Hours : Sun 10am–7pm, Mon–Thu 10am–6pm, Fri–Sat 10am–9pmWebsite

Used bookstores

Stories Books & Cafe

1716 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90026

Secondhand and new stand together floor to ceiling in this Echo Park room, with coffee at the back and a patio that fills with laptops by mid-morning. The detail that matters if you are carrying a box: Time Out noted in April 2026 that this is one of the last places in town that still buys books across the counter. Its own site says the doors open seven days a week.

Website

Used bookstores

The Open Book

300 E Colorado Blvd #161, Pasadena, CA 91101

Also in Pasadena, tucked into the Paseo Colorado mall, this is the local branch of a seven-store Southern California group whose shelves run from vintage hardbacks to current paperbacks, with antique oddments and jewelry mixed in. The store describes its own range as everything between timeless vintage tales and modern stories, and its events calendar was already booking craft nights, workshops and trivia into September 2026. Comics and manga get real square footage rather than a token spinner.

Hours : Mon–Thu noon–8pm, Fri–Sat 11am–8pm, Sun 11am–6pmWebsite

Antiquarian bookseller

Whitmore Rare Books

121 E Union St, Pasadena, CA 91103

A specialist house in Old Pasadena dealing literary first editions and, in its own phrase, other books of merit. It is not a browsing stop: the firm asks you to book ahead so a specialist can pull a selection in your collecting areas, and it spends part of the year on the fair circuit, with a May 2026 date listed on its own schedule. Walk in with a want list and a budget, not a tote bag.

Hours : Mon–Sat 9am–5pm, closed SunWebsite

Used bookstores

Angel City Books & Records

218 Pier Ave, Santa Monica, CA 90405

Three blocks off the sand in Santa Monica, which is a separate municipality with its own parking rules, this 1998 shop sells new and used books beside a heavy wall of vinyl, turntables and amps. The owners publish exactly what they want to buy — classic literature, poetry, philosophy, jazz and classic-rock LPs — and exactly what they will not take, textbooks and DVDs included, which saves a wasted trip. Time Out listed it in April 2026 along with the gallery of local coastal art hung inside the store. Their own notice is worth reading twice: online orders and shipping have stopped, so the stock exists only in the room.

Hours : Sun, Mon, Wed–Sat 11:30am–5pm, closed TueWebsite

Used bookstores

Arcana: Books on the Arts

8675 Washington Blvd, Culver City, CA 90232

Over in Culver City, another independent municipality, Arcana handles art, photography, design and film books at reference grade, in print and long out of it. Its online listings read like auction lots: edition statements, binding notes, signatures recorded where they exist, inventory numbers on everything. Time Out gave its April 2026 hours as Wednesday to Sunday, 11am–7pm. If photobooks are anywhere on your buy list, an hour here teaches you more about that market than a month of comparables.

Website

Antiquarian bookseller

Mystery Pier Books

8826 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069

West Hollywood is another city inside the county, and down a narrow corridor off the Strip it hides a small house holding several thousand books, every one a first edition and a great many signed. Membership in the ABAA and the ILAB, plus a client list the shop names openly — del Toro, Caine, Jolie — tells you which end of the market this is. April 2026's Time Out roundup carried it at Monday to Saturday 11am–6pm and Sunday noon–5pm. Come to calibrate your eye on jackets and states; almost nothing here will resell at a margin.

Website

Used bookstores

Sideshow Books

1639 S La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90035

Rare, vintage and generally strange stock on South La Cienega, from a shop that also screens films on its back patio. Its own August 2026 announcements list Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday movie nights, with doors at 7:30 — Peckinpah's The Getaway, No Country for Old Men, A Scanner Darkly — and admission is simply that you buy a book. Those same posts give the shop hours as Wednesday through Sunday, noon to 6pm, with street parking out front.

Antiquarian bookseller

Michael R. Thompson Rare Books

8242 W Third St, Suite 230, Los Angeles, CA 90048

A second-floor suite on West Third holding one of the more scholarly stocks in the county: history of ideas, philosophy, the sciences, bibliography, literature. The house still issues printed catalogs and posts them as PDFs — Archives & Ephemera appeared in spring 2026, followed by a late-summer new-arrivals list. Address and phone are published, hours are not, so dial 323-658-1901 before climbing the stairs.

Website

Used bookstores

BOOKOFF Monterey Park

2107 S Atlantic Blvd, Monterey Park, CA 91754

Monterey Park sits just east of downtown, which makes this the Japanese chain's closest full-format branch to the middle of the city: stock is bought over the counter, priced off a tier grid and reshelved the same day, with books, music, film discs and games all in scope. Book-Off announced the opening for September 19, 2024 and posts the store at 10am to 8pm. Read the chain's own store list carefully before you plan around it — the Little Tokyo address and the coming-soon Hollywood Boulevard one are Ani-Lab hobby stores, a different format entirely.

Hours : 10am–8pmWebsite

Used bookstores

BOOKOFF Gardena

1610 W Redondo Beach Blvd #E8, Gardena, CA 90247

Gardena, a separate city in the South Bay, hosts the branch inside Pacific Square with something no other address here has: a wide selection of new and pre-owned Japanese books and CDs, in the chain's own phrase, shelved beside the English stock. It works in both directions on books, CDs, vinyl, cassettes, DVDs, Blu-rays, video games and collectibles; trading cards it will only take off you, and the company adds that game consoles are handled at neither end of this counter. The chain's store list, kept current enough through 2026 to carry a coming-soon Hollywood address, puts this branch at 10am to 8pm on 310-532-5010. Selling needs no appointment, only a government photo ID, and the offer comes back as one total you take or leave.

Hours : 10am–8pmWebsite

Used bookstores

BOOKOFF Del Amo Fashion Center

21712 Hawthorne Blvd, Torrance, CA 90503

Down in Torrance, an independent city on the far side of the 405, the chain keeps a branch on the lower level of Del Amo Fashion Center, unit 290 near Macy's. This one takes the full chain list in both directions and, unlike the Gardena store, handles game consoles too; trading cards move in the selling direction only. Book-Off posts no times of its own here and defers to the mall, where Simon gives Monday to Saturday 10am–9pm, Sunday 11am–7pm, plus a dated exception for Labor Day on September 7, 2026. Do not confuse it with the outlet upstairs on the north side at 21540 Hawthorne, which sells but, by the company's own notice, buys nothing.

Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–9pm, Sun 11am–7pm (mall hours)Website

Comics & graphic novels

Secret Headquarters

3137 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90039

Twenty years old, moved from Silver Lake to Atwater Village, and lined with comics, graphic novels, art books and zines from local presses. What earns it a place on a sourcing route rather than a reading list: per Time Out in April 2026, the shop buys comic collections over the counter, and the same listing gives its hours as daily, 11am–7pm. The staff will walk you through a run you have never handled, which is worth real money when you are valuing somebody's inherited long boxes.

Antiquarian bookseller

Owl Creek Books

3507 W Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90019

Mid-city is thin ground for antiquarian stock, which makes this rare-and-vintage shop on West Pico worth the detour. Its catalog as of spring 2025 ran to signed first editions, leather and fine bindings, a Rackham, a Meggendorfer movable, and two printings of The Waste Land carrying Scofield Thayer provenance. The shop sells online with free in-store pickup and keeps a page for selling your books to them; opening hours it does not publish, so phone first.

Website

Thrift stores & charity shops

Friends of the Library store

The Friends Bookstore, Santa Monica Public Library

601 Santa Monica Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90401

Still in Santa Monica, the Friends of the Santa Monica Public Library keep a donation-fed store inside the Main Library. Volunteers triage the intake, list the valuable finds online and shelve the rest cheap; the group accepts books, audiobooks, vinyl, CDs and DVDs in English and Spanish. The constraint is the clock — nine open hours a week across three afternoons. The same volunteers are currently raising money to turn the old Main Library courtyard into a café and literary lounge, so the group is very much active.

Hours : Mon noon–3pm, Thu 3–6pm, Sat noon–3pmWebsite

Friends of the Library store

Friends of the Beverly Hills Public Library Bookstore

444 N Rexford Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210

Beverly Hills runs its own library, and the Friends store inside it looks less like a donation bin than like a small curated indie. Every item was given: daily drop-offs from residents, plus estate gifts that the Friends say have included performing-arts libraries from local entertainment figures. Shelves run through art, cookbooks, screenplays, graphic novels, manga, collectors' items and signed copies, priced low because the proceeds fund library literacy programs. The group publishes its board slate a year out — 2026-2027 is posted — but never its store hours, so plan around the library's.

Website

Library book sales

Used Book Sale, Central Library

630 W 5th St, Los Angeles, CA 90071

Downtown's Central Library sells donated books, magazines and DVDs by the hundreds in a sale staffed by the building's own support groups: the Central Library Docents, FOCAL and the Culinary Historians of Southern California. The library's event listing sets it for the third Saturday in each month, from 9:30am until noon, across twelve dates. That is a two-and-a-half-hour window in the busiest library in the city, so arrive at 9:30 rather than at 11.

Hours : Third Saturday of the month, 9:30am–noonWebsite

Scan before you buy

At every one of these spots, snap the shelf with BiblioScan: the AI identifies each book and shows its real resale price. Walk out with profitable books, not random boxes.

Try BiblioScan for free

Local sourcing tips

Group your day by cluster, not by rating. Downtown plus Echo Park gives you Spring Street, Glendale Boulevard, Sunset Boulevard and the Central Library rotunda within four miles. Pasadena stacks Book Alley, the Paseo Colorado shop and an Old Pasadena rare dealer inside a mile. The Valley run is Cahuenga and Lankershim, ten minutes apart, and the South Bay one is two mall counters off the same boulevard. Mixing clusters costs you an hour of driving per switch, and afternoon traffic makes that worse than the map suggests.
Tuesday is the day to avoid and Wednesday is the day to start. Angel City in Santa Monica closes Tuesdays outright, A Good Used Book takes Monday and Tuesday off, Sideshow opens Wednesday, and Arcana in Culver City does not open until Wednesday either. By Saturday the same shelves have been picked over by the weekend crowd, and the library store in Santa Monica only opens Monday, Thursday and Saturday afternoons.
Treat published opening hours as a starting hypothesis. The Iliad, Book Alley, Owl Creek and the West Third Street rare dealer give you a phone line and nothing else. The Last Bookstore contradicts itself between two of its own pages for the Downtown store. Nothing on this list is a five-minute detour in this city, so make the call.
The flea markets are a lottery, not a plan. A Good Used Book worked the Melrose Trading Post and the Rose Bowl flea market for years before taking a lease, by its own account, so dealers with real stock do turn up at both. Neither organizer promises books in writing, though, and the Rose Bowl runs 2,500 vendors across a stadium parking lot — budget a whole morning and accept that you may find nothing.
Know which counters actually pay. The three Book-Off branches — Monterey Park, Gardena, the lower level at Del Amo — are the fastest cash-out for genre paperbacks, manga and media, priced off a fixed grid with no negotiation. Stories in Echo Park and the Spring Street trade desk take general stock. Angel City publishes its want list and its refusals, so call before loading the car. Secret Headquarters handles comic runs. And for a signed first or a scarce art title, the right move is an appraisal from Whitmore or the Third Street house, not a counter offer.
The bottom of the price ladder is institutional. The Friends stores in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica and the monthly Central Library sale price on donation value, not on market value, which is exactly the gap a reseller lives in. The trade-off is access: nine hours a week at one, nothing posted at all for the second, and a single 150-minute slot per month at the third.

Frequently asked questions

Where can I find cheap used books in Los Angeles?

The floor of this market belongs to the library volunteers. The store at the Beverly Hills library on North Rexford, and its counterpart inside the Santa Monica Main Library, price everything on what came through the door, while the Central Library sale downtown moves hundreds of books, magazines and DVDs on its third-Saturday dates. After that comes the dollar shelf on the Last Bookstore mezzanine and the tier pricing at any of the three Book-Off branches. Rare dealers such as Whitmore, Arcana and Mystery Pier operate on a completely different logic — scarcity, not volume.

Where do I sell used books in Los Angeles?

Three routes, and they pay very differently. The counter is fastest: the Book-Off branches in Monterey Park, Gardena and Torrance take books and media on a fixed grid, Stories in Echo Park still buys over the counter, the Spring Street trade desk takes books and records, and Angel City in Santa Monica publishes its want list so you can call ahead. Donating to a Friends store clears shelf space but returns nothing. The third route pays best and needs the most knowledge: list the few copies that are actually worth listing. That is the part BiblioScan handles — photograph a whole shelf spine-out and it returns the current resale value title by title, so you know which five books deserve their own listing and which forty belong in a box for the counter.

Which day is best for book hunting in Los Angeles?

Wednesday, if you can take it. Everything on this list is open, the weekend crowd has not been through, and Sideshow, Arcana and A Good Used Book all start their week that day. Saturday is the only day that combines the Central Library sale, the Santa Monica library store and the flea markets, but you are sharing every aisle. Tuesday is the worst: Angel City closed, A Good Used Book closed, half the eastside opening late.

When is the big library book sale in Los Angeles?

The reliable one is monthly rather than annual. LAPL puts its sale in the rotunda at 630 W 5th Street, downtown, on the month's third Saturday between 9:30am and midday, staffed by the building's docents, by FOCAL and by the culinary-history society attached to it. Every city in the metro runs a separate library system, so the Friends groups around it — Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Pasadena — set dates of their own. Check the individual library instead of assuming one county-wide weekend.

Do you run a store here?

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Nearby cities

Las Vegas Phoenix

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