Memphis hands you one tight cluster and then a lot of windshield time. Burke's Book Store anchors Cooper-Young in midtown, Shangri-La Records runs a book and magazine intake desk a bit over a mile north of it on Madison Avenue, the library-run store in the Central Library lobby sits about two miles east of Burke's on Poplar Avenue, and South Main Book Juggler is roughly four miles west-northwest of it in the downtown arts district. After those four the map jumps municipal lines: Germantown and Bartlett each keep a Friends-run room on fixed afternoons, Millington puts on a sale up Navy Road, and one more lands over the state border in Olive Branch, Mississippi. Anything below that stands beyond the Memphis city limits names its municipality in its first sentence.
Two counters on this page publish what they will look at, and they want very different material. Burke's wants jacketed hardcovers and the larger trade paperback format only, publishes a refusal list that starts at book club editions and textbooks and runs on through ex-library copies and anything technical, and pays either money or store credit set half again above it, with the desk working from 10am to 4pm on every day but Sunday. Shangri-La takes books and magazines alongside the vinyl and looks at used stock on weekday afternoons or by appointment. Five of the six stops that remain — the library store, the two Friends rooms and the two suburban sale calendars — run on donated stock, so plan those as buying trips and nothing else; South Main Book Juggler is ordinary retail.
One dispute rewrote the summer. The city broke off its long arrangement with the volunteer group that had run the secondhand shop in the Central Library lobby, the shop went dark on July 8, 2026, and The Daily Memphian reported it trading again on Friday, July 31, on the word of library officials, and accepting nothing but cash. That piece also records that sales at the remaining branches would stay suspended, while the Friends — whose president Ann Bailey-Mitchell issued a statement on July 30, 2026 saying the city had asked the group to end its volunteer role inside branches and transfer its funds — still carry April and October sales at Central on pages of their own site last edited in 2023 and 2024. Until that resolves, the sale dates you can actually plan around belong to the suburbs.
Used bookstoresBurke's Book Store
936 S Cooper St, Memphis, TN 38104
The Cooper-Young storefront is the fourth address of a business its own history page traces to 1875, when Walter Burke Sr. opened on North Main Street selling books, newspapers, slates and tin toys; Corey and Cheryl Mesler bought the shop in 2000 and moved it here in 2007. Its buying terms are unusually specific and all of them are posted: jackets required on hardcovers, mass-market paperbacks refused outright, nothing off a book club list, an ex-library shelf, a textbook rack or the technical and computer sections, and payment as cash, a check over $25 against ID, or trade credit worth one and a half times the cash offer. The wanted list runs to Southern history and literature, literary fiction, mysteries, science fiction and horror with the bestsellers stripped out, plus philosophy, art, African American history, poetry, Eastern religion and world history, while sports, business, travel, health, biography, humor and children's titles sit on the not-buying side. Buyers work Monday through Saturday, 10am to 4pm, and never on a Sunday or after four, which shuts the selling window long before the shop itself closes at 6pm Monday through Thursday and 9pm on Friday and Saturday; its events page carried a first-Thursday discount evening at 25 percent off from 5 to 8pm, dated from April 2 to December 3, 2026.
Hours : Mon–Thu 10am–6pm, Fri–Sat 10am–9pmWebsite Used bookstore inside the Central LibrarySecond Edition Books
Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, 3030 Poplar Ave, Memphis, TN 38111
The secondhand room off the atrium of the Central Library shut on July 8, 2026 when Memphis Public Libraries wound up its partnership with Friends of the Library, and The Daily Memphian reported on July 31 that library officials had it reopening that same Friday at 11am. Eric Harris, the system's director, is quoted there on the 5pm close and the cash-only rule, and the same story adds that book sales at every other branch would remain paused — the line to remember before driving to any Memphis branch on a rumor. What the Friends published while the shop was theirs still describes the shelves: an average sale price of $3 across fiction, mysteries, science fiction, romance, children's and young adult, graphic novels, Southern writers, Pulitzer winners, large print and cookbooks, with CDs, LPs and audiobooks alongside. No fresh grid has replaced the Tuesday-to-Saturday 10am-to-5pm week the Friends still post, which is why no schedule appears here — the 11am reopening is the only figure the library itself has given.
Friends of the Library bookstoreFriends Bookstore, Germantown Community Library
1925 Exeter Rd, Germantown, TN 38138
Out in Germantown, a separate municipality east of Memphis, the Friends of the Germantown Community Library run a shop the city says you can reach from inside the library and from the front patio alike. The City of Germantown prints the entire price list, which is what makes this floor quick to work: 50 cents for mass-market paperbacks, children's titles, VHS and cassette audiobooks, $1 for young adult and music CDs, $2 for hardcovers, trade paperbacks, vintage and DVDs, $3 for new releases and audiobooks on CD, $5 for coffee table books and signed copies. That page states the shop is open and accepting donations, and the library event feed printed beside it was listing programs dated September 3, 2026 when it was read. The window is the constraint — four short afternoons and one Saturday morning — so the whole Germantown leg has to be built around it.
Hours : Tue–Fri 1–5pm, Sat 10am–1pm; closed Sun and MonWebsite Daily shelves, monthly feature sale and an April saleFriends of the Bartlett Public Library
Bartlett Public Library, 5884 Stage Rd, Bartlett, TN 38134
Up in Bartlett, its own city northeast of Memphis, the Friends group works on three levels instead of one, which is why it repays a repeat visit. Daily Sale shelves near the adult fiction stacks carry books and magazines all year at 25 cents to $3; a Feature Sale in the front lobby rotates category by category through a 2026 calendar the group publishes — military in May, beach reads across June and July, oversized and best books in August, diet and regional interest in September, science fiction and fine arts in October, cookbooks in November, holiday and gift titles in December, plus a nonfiction pop-up across the last two days of October. The Annual Book Sale fills The Venue Banquet Hall next door and ran April 15 to 18 in 2026, led off by a preview evening that costs nothing if your membership was active two days before it and $10 on the door if it was not; the group has already posted April 21 to 25, 2027. One caution before you get excited about the daily shelves: the Friends also list donated stock on eBay under fol-books-4-all, so assume the scarce material has been screened.
Hours : Mon–Thu 10am–8pm, Fri–Sat 10am–6pm, Sun 1–5pmWebsite Where can I find cheap used books in Memphis?
The floor of this market is a library shelf, not a shop. Olive Branch prices its spring sale at 25 cents to $1 and Bartlett keeps its year-round Daily Sale shelves between 25 cents and $3, which is as low as printed paper gets around here. Germantown prints a full tariff whose bottom rung is 50 cents and whose ceiling is $5, reached only by coffee table volumes and signed copies. Inside the city itself the library store on Poplar Avenue averaged $3 a sale under the Friends who used to run it, and it takes cash. Burke's and South Main Book Juggler price as bookstores rather than fundraisers, so go there for the title you actually want.
Where do I sell used books in Memphis?
Burke's is the main door, and it is picky in writing. A hardback that has lost its jacket goes straight back in the box, pocket-format paperbacks are not wanted, and neither are discards, coursework or anything technical. The offer comes as cash, a check once the figure clears $25, or credit pegged at 150 percent of that same figure. The subjects it is chasing run Southern, literary and classic; commercial nonfiction and books for young readers sit on its posted not-buying list. Shangri-La on Madison Avenue is the other door and a completely different palate — print stock racked next to the vinyl, Memphis subjects prized above all of it, and used material examined on weekday afternoons. Split the pile before either drive: shoot a whole shelf of spines, hand the frame to BiblioScan, and every title it recognizes comes back with what the open market is paying for that edition, which tells you what to list yourself and what to hand across a counter for credit.
Which day is best for book hunting in Memphis?
Saturday, but a short one. Germantown opens its Friends room only from 10am to 1pm that day, Bartlett holds its daily shelves until 6pm, and South Main Book Juggler trades 10am to 6pm downtown, so the Germantown leg has to come first — Burke's runs to 9pm on a Saturday and can soak up the end of the day. Monday thins out badly: the Book Juggler is dark and the Germantown room is shut, which leaves the Bartlett shelves and Burke's, trading 10am to 6pm with its buyers off at four. Selling flips the answer to a weekday afternoon: Burke's takes books until 4pm every day except Sunday, and Shangri-La looks at used stock from 11am to 4pm on weekdays.
When is the Friends of the Library sale in Memphis?
Inside the city the honest answer is that nobody can tell you right now. Friends of the Memphis and Shelby County Public Libraries still say on their website that their sales run each April and October at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, 3030 Poplar Avenue, and their Second Editions Bookstore page still lists a Tuesday-to-Saturday week from 10am to 5pm. But the city ended the partnership in July 2026, the storefront closed on the 8th of that month, and the Daily Memphian story of July 31 has it back open as Second Edition Books, quoting the system's director Eric Harris on the cash-only rule, with branch book sales left paused. The dependable Friends dates are all outside Memphis proper: Bartlett in April, Olive Branch across the Mississippi line in late March, and a three-day Boosters sale in Millington last August.