Lubbock spreads its secondhand shelving thin, and 50th Street is the only road in this guide carrying two separate addresses: Lit Brews at number 3501 and 2nd Chance Books at 4206, 0.74 miles apart and closer together than any other pair of addresses here. Westward the map opens up: The Nook lies 2.1 miles west-northwest of 2nd Chance on 40th Street, 2nd & Charles a further 1.4 miles out along the Marsha Sharp Freeway, and the Antique Mall of Lubbock where 19th Street runs out, eight miles from the downtown library. The remainder sits east and south of the middle — two Friends of the Library operations inside Mahon on 9th Street, and a booth-rental resale floor on Avenue Q. Every entry below falls inside the Lubbock city limits; none is out in Wolfforth, Shallowater or Slaton.
Work out which of these places will take a box off your hands, because one of them pays and the rest do not. 2nd & Charles keeps a buyback manager, limits each visit to three totes and quotes a single number for the lot. The Nook will swap any book on its shelves against ten you donate, 2nd Chance Books is billed on its own company site as donations-and-data-driven and posts no trade terms anywhere, while the Friends of the Library gather material through two unattended sheds at library branches plus a dock at Mahon staffed two mornings a week. Prices sort just as cleanly: quarter books in the library basement, a dollar a hardback on the floor above it, $2 and $4 at Zen's, one flat $5 at The Nook.
Three things date an older Lubbock list. The first is that the two newest shops are barely a year old — the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal previewed Lit Brews on September 29, 2025 ahead of an October 4 opening, and The Nook held its grand opening on November 1, 2025. Then there is the fact that the city spent years with next to nothing, which is why the ghosts linger in directories: Lonestar 99.5 reported in February 2017 that the sign on Hester Books gave December 31, 2016 as its last day, and the same piece has Star Comics saying it dealt in comic books rather than used novels. The third is the chain that never arrived, since Half Price Books counts 37 Texas branches and not one of them on the South Plains.
Used bookstores2nd Chance Books
4206 50th St, Lubbock, TX 79413
A wide, plainly shelved room on 50th Street with two resident cats, Wilbur and Charlotte, whose Facebook page calls the shop Lubbock's only locally owned used bookstore — read that as the store's own wording, since the same company also runs a branch in San Marcos. Discounts follow a weekday rota it publishes itself: non-fiction at 20 percent off on Tuesdays, a Double Discount Wednesday that doubles the standing 10 percent for students, seniors, educators and veterans to 20, and a Fiction Thursday that picks one section at a time, mystery on August 27, 2026 and the whole children's area on September 3. Stock arrives as gifts rather than across a counter, and no buying or trade terms appear on the Lubbock site or the parent one. On September 1, 2026 the shop announced Lubbock's Local Book Crawl alongside Lit Brews and The Nook, a punch card to be filled across September 4 and 5 with three winners drawn on Labor Day.
Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–7pm, Sun noon–5pmWebsite Used bookstoresThe Nook
5724 40th St, Lubbock, TX 79407
Flat pricing and a shop dog: everything on the main shelves costs $5, the children's room is $3 a title, the coffee is free, and a puppy called Vienna works weekdays only, all of it straight off the store's own posts dated up to September 2, 2026. It opened on 40th Street with a grand opening on Saturday, November 1, 2025 hosted by co-founder Brielle Soto, and it has a sister shop in Artesia, New Mexico. Its trade offer is unusually blunt — an announcement of September 2, 2026 gives you one free book of your choosing, from any shelf, for every ten you bring in. Check the clock before driving out: on August 16, 2026 the shop pushed its opening from ten to eleven and its close from five to seven, keeping Thursday and Sunday closed.
Hours : Mon–Wed, Fri–Sat 11am–7pm; closed Thu and SunWebsite Bookstore and coffee shopLit Brews
3501 50th St Ste 124, Lubbock, TX 79413
The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal walked through this one on September 29, 2025, five days before the opening celebration at 8:30 in the morning on Saturday, October 4: black shelves built by owner Elizabeth Roberts and her family, carrying new and secondhand copies together, split into science fiction, fantasy, romance, horror, general fiction and non-fiction, each run of shelving finishing in a themed pair of chairs. Separate tables hold self-help, true crime, local authors and one the paper recorded as BookTok Made Me Buy It, while a side room with green couches and an electric fireplace is the one Roberts said might end up hosting events. Roberts is a local author herself, which explains a drink list built out of literary jokes and pastries brought in from the Apple Tree bakery nearby. It signed up for the punch-card crawl set for September 4 and 5, 2026 with 2nd Chance Books and The Nook, a post of September 2, 2026 mentions a student discount, and one mirror of its social listing still shows a 7am weekday opening that neither directory behind the grid above repeats.
Hours : Tue–Fri 10am–7pm, Sat–Sun 9am–5pm; closed MonWebsite Used bookstores2nd & Charles
6066 Marsha Sharp Fwy, Lubbock, TX 79407
The single paying counter on this page, out on the freeway a mile and a half southwest of The Nook. Its published routine hands you three of the chain's branded totes at most; you fill them, a buyback manager carries them off, and a text or an email follows with one figure for the whole load rather than a line per item, offered two ways — cash, or, in the wording of its sell page, in-store credit of up to 150 percent above that cash offer. Every category of book is accepted apart from textbooks, advance copies, VHS and PC games, whatever is refused comes back to you, and the buyback window closes sixty minutes early. Its Lubbock page carried the chain's Labor Day 2026 manga and graphic novel event: a used volume at half price with any new one, plus 25 percent extra store credit for trading manga and graphic novels in.
Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–8pm, Sun 11am–7pmWebsite Friends of the Library sale weekendFOL BookStore
Mahon Library basement, 1306 9th St, Lubbock, TX 79401
The library Friends, chartered in June 1967, empty their sorted donations into the basement of Mahon Library over a run of weekends published a year in advance; the 2026 poster lists ten of them, of which September 25–26, October 30–31 and the Kris Kringle sale on December 4–5 are still to come. Friday admits members only, though joining at the table is allowed, and Saturday is open to anybody, with doors at 9am, posted hours through 2 and shopping permitted until 3. The City of Lubbock's library calendar says the cheapest books go for 25 cents and lists cash, checks, credit and debit as accepted. Nothing needs booking, and the posted code of conduct asks that a book you decide against goes back upright where you found it instead of riding around in the cart.
Hours : September 25–26, October 30–31 and December 4–5, 2026, 9am–2pm (browsing until 3pm)Website Where can I find cheap used books in Lubbock?
Start under Mahon Library. The city's own library calendar says books at a Friends weekend start at 25 cents, with September 25 and 26, October 30 and 31, and December 4 and 5 left in 2026, Fridays held for members and Saturdays open to all. When the basement is closed, the Friends' Mini BookStore on the first floor keeps hardbacks a dollar and paperbacks fifty cents through every library hour. After that come Zen's Mega Thrift Shop on Avenue Q, whose February 2026 price sheet reads paperbacks $2 and hardbacks $4 on its own merchandise, and The Nook on 40th Street, where every book costs $5 and the children's room is $3.
Where do I sell used books in Lubbock?
Just one counter in this guide actually pays, and it belongs to 2nd & Charles on the Marsha Sharp Freeway. Three of its totes is the ceiling per visit; the buyback manager takes them away, messages you a single number for the load instead of a breakdown, and lets you pick money or store credit, the credit rated on the chain's sell page at 150 percent over the money. Textbooks and advance copies are refused, as are VHS tapes and computer games, and the counter itself winds up before the store does. Nowhere else in this guide pays — The Nook gives one free book for every ten donated, while 2nd Chance Books and the library Friends both work on gifts alone. Before any of that, the shelf itself will tell you what to keep. Hold up a phone, let BiblioScan work the spines out of one frame, and every recognized title arrives tagged with the resale price attached to it, which is how two or three keepers get picked out of a load that is otherwise pure tote filler.
When is the Friends of the Library sale in Lubbock?
The Friends of the Lubbock Public Library run their sale weekends in the basement of Mahon Library at 1306 9th Street, and publish the whole year ahead of time. The 2026 poster lists ten dates: January 23–24, February 27–28, March 27–28, April 24–25, June 12–13, July 24–25 and August 28–29 have gone, leaving the September weekend on the 25th and 26th, the October one on the 30th and 31st, and the Kris Kringle pair, December 4 and 5. Each follows the same shape: Friday belongs to members, who can join right there, Saturday is public, the doors open at 9am, the posted hours run to 2 and you may shop on until 3. Between weekends the group's Mini BookStore upstairs sells the same donated stock whenever the library is open.
Which day is best for book hunting in Lubbock?
Saturday, comfortably. On a sale weekend the Friends basement admits the general public on no other day, and every other stop in this guide keeps Saturday hours too, Zen's included, though its own week is only five days long. Midweek pays off differently if you are buying rather than hunting: 2nd Chance Books takes 20 percent off non-fiction on Tuesdays and runs Double Discount Wednesday, which lifts students, veterans, educators and seniors to 20 percent, and Lit Brews pours coffee from ten Tuesday through Friday and from nine on Saturday and Sunday. The two to avoid are Monday, when Lit Brews and Zen's are both closed, and Thursday, when The Nook does not open at all.