Where to buy used books in Minneapolis

Updated 9/2/2026

Minneapolis keeps its secondhand trade spread along two long streets rather than packed into one quarter. The Lake Street corridor is the dense stretch: Uncle Hugo's and Uncle Edgar's under one roof on 31st, Moon Palace half a block away at Minnehaha, DreamHaven south of them on 38th, the Irreverent Bookworm further down Bloomington. Everything else is a separate errand — the Book House upstairs in Dinkytown, Magers & Quinn in Uptown, James and Mary Laurie downtown, Eat My Words across the river in Marcy-Holmes. Eight of the twenty stops below fall outside the Minneapolis line altogether — in Saint Paul, West Saint Paul, St. Louis Park or Roseville, each its own municipality — and every one of them says so in its opening line.

Work the buy counters first, because the terms here are published and they diverge sharply. Magers & Quinn takes walk-ins seven days from 10am to 7pm and pays cash or a store credit worth half again as much, and it will drive to your house for a collection over 800 volumes. The Irreverent Bookworm pays no cash at all, only credit at about 15% of cover, and it wants one to two weeks to work through a lot. Midway on University Avenue wants an appointment booked before you arrive, and Other Skies buys the same rare genre material it sells. Half Price Books, on Excelsior Boulevard and on Ford Parkway, quotes on anything any day it is open, which is where the leftovers go.

Anything written before 2025 will send you to the wrong addresses. Eat My Words, James and Mary Laurie, Boneshaker Books and Strive Bookstore all moved in the year to April 2026; Boneshaker landed at 708 W. 26th St. on the last day of October 2025. Sixth Chamber on Grand Avenue closed back in March 2019 and Paperback Exchange has been shut since a water main flooded it in February 2025, with no reopening announced as of April 2026. Two new secondhand rooms opened the other way: Other Skies drew a Star Tribune profile in October 2025, and the Book Lady's Library opened on Smith Avenue in Saint Paul in September 2025.

Spot map

The best spots

Used bookstores

Magers & Quinn Booksellers

3038 Hennepin Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55408

Uptown's big room on Hennepin runs new and used side by side and trades until 10pm nightly, which leaves it as the last address still lit once everything else has locked its door. The buy counter takes walk-ins from 10am to 7pm daily, first come first served, and asks only that you phone ahead past ten boxes; offers come as cash or as store credit worth 50% more than the cash figure, and whatever it declines has to be collected inside 24 hours or it counts as abandoned. For collections above 800 volumes the shop will send a buyer to your house anywhere around the Twin Cities, and it wants a rough shelf count plus a few photographs of the shelves before committing. Three author nights sat on its calendar for the week of September 8, 2026, so weekday evenings get crowded.

Hours : Daily 10am–10pm; buy counter 10am–7pmWebsite
Used bookstores

The Book House in Dinkytown

1316 4th St SE Unit 201, Minneapolis, MN 55414

Up the stairs of the Dinkydale building, a warren of small rooms holds the last used bookstore left in the University of Minnesota district: a rare book room, a poetry alcove under a window facing Bob Dylan's old apartment, and a wall of vinyl. Twin Cities Geek, writing on April 23, 2026, had the shop marking its fiftieth year and cutting everything 20% across Independent Bookstore Day weekend. Read the website as a historical document rather than a schedule — one page claims over 40,000 books in the store with as many again in the archive, the separate catalog site still says 30,000 of each, and neither publishes opening times, which is why none appear here. Phone before you drive over.

Used bookstores

Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction and Uncle Edgar's Mystery Bookstore

2716 E 31st St, Minneapolis, MN 55406

Both names sit under one roof with a single checkout counter: Uncle Hugo's for science fiction and fantasy since 1974, Uncle Edgar's for mystery since 1980, rebuilt on this side street in 2022 after arsonists burned the Chicago Avenue building in May 2020. Publishers Weekly toured the rebuilt shop in June 2024 and put the inventory at 100,000 volumes, 70% of them secondhand, across 4,000 square feet of selling floor with another 5,000 in a basement waiting to be processed. FOX 9 filmed owner Don Blyly behind the counter on March 2, 2026 for the store's fifty-second birthday. A backlist on that scale is the argument for walking in with a scanner instead of a want list.

Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–6pm, Sun noon–5pmWebsite
Used bookstores

DreamHaven Books and Comics

2301 E 38th St, Minneapolis, MN 55407

Greg Ketter has sold science fiction, fantasy, horror and film books out of Minneapolis since 1977, and the Powderhorn storefront mixes used stock with new releases, comics, pulps, posters and original art. Public Libraries Online named it a local spotlight for the 2026 PLA conference in a piece dated February 2026, clocking it at 4.1 miles from the Minneapolis Convention Center and a nine-minute walk from the nearest Blue Line platform. Note that the shop also lists on AbeBooks and eBay, so the collectible end of the room is already priced against the open market and the margin lives in whatever has never been cataloged.

Hours : Mon–Sat noon–6pm; closed SunWebsite
Friends of the Library sale

Ramsey County Library Friends Fall Used Book Sale

Roseville Library, 2180 Hamline Ave N, Roseville, MN 55113

The Ramsey County Library Friends hold their autumn fundraiser at the Roseville branch on Hamline Avenue from September 16 to 20, 2026, and their published rules are unusually blunt about dealers. Scanning devices and large containers are barred from the Wednesday evening members-only preview, but the organizers state in writing that booksellers with scanners and other bulk buyers are welcome from Thursday morning onward, once the shelves have been restocked. Ask at the door and they will park a cart or an oversized bag in an adjacent room so you can fill it without blocking an aisle and settle up in one go. Sunday closes with a five-dollar bag sale from noon, everything but the jigsaw puzzles.

Hours : September 16–20, 2026Website
Book fair and used book sale

Twin Cities Book Festival

Union Depot, 214 4th St E, Saint Paul, MN 55101

Rain Taxi's Twin Cities Book Festival lands at Union Depot in Saint Paul on Saturday, November 7, 2026, admission free, with the fair itself running 10am to 5pm. More than 140 exhibitors take tables — independent publishers, literary organizations, book dealers, authors — and the organizers run their own used book and record sale inside the hall, which is the half that concerns anyone buying to resell. Exhibitors post festival pricing and a good many hold signings at their tables, so first editions get signed on the spot. Author sessions run alongside the fair all day, and the schedule itself tells you to alternate between the aisles and the stage.

Hours : November 7, 2026, 10am–5pmWebsite

All spots by type

Used bookstores

Used bookstores

Moon Palace Books

3032 Minnehaha Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55406

Half a block from the Uncles, this Longfellow corner has sold new and used together since 2012 and carries the Geek Love Cafe inside, which makes it the obvious place to sort a load before driving on. Its own front page describes the two kinds of shelf side by side, and Twin Cities Geek put it in the April 2026 Independent Bookstore Day roundup with the Babycake's Book Stack truck parked outside for the day. Secondhand is the smaller share of this floor, so plan a quick sweep rather than a long dig.

Used bookstores

The Irreverent Bookworm

5163 Bloomington Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55417

A queer and woman-owned shop down in the Nokomis end of the city, blending new titles with used across fiction, occult, children's and graphic novels. Its trade page spells out every condition, and you want them straight in your head before a box leaves the house: store credit only, never cash, at roughly 15% of a title's original cover price, with lots worked through in the order received over one to two weeks and an offer sent by text or email that you are free to decline. The want list runs to LGBTQIA+ titles, recent fiction and nonfiction, classics, witchcraft and paganism, current YA, tabletop gaming, authors of color, graphic novels, recent poetry and zines, while the refusal list rules out textbooks outright along with ex-library copies, jacketless hardcovers, magazines and Reader's Digest editions. On April 25, 2026 the first five customers through the door at noon collected a 20% coupon, which tells you how the place handles a rush.

Used bookstores

Eat My Words Bookstore

201 6th St SE Suite 220, Minneapolis, MN 55414

Used and rare since 2014, now upstairs at 6th Street SE after a move out of Northeast that Twin Cities Geek logged in its April 2026 bookstore roundup. The shop bills itself as a knowledge redistribution center and keeps a curated general stock — classics, oddities, local authors and artists — with readings and open mics filling the evenings. It also runs to 8pm six days a week, which is late for a room this size.

Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–8pm, Sun noon–6pmWebsite
Used bookstores

James and Mary Laurie Booksellers

933 Marquette Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55402

Downtown near Marquette and 10th, an antiquarian house holding more than 120,000 individually chosen volumes, over 30,000 classical and jazz LPs, and a gallery of old printed maps and prints, the whole thing at street level. The Marquette address is recent: Twin Cities Geek counted the move among the year's bookstore relocations in April 2026, so older directory entries will send you to the wrong block. Subjects go deep rather than broad — Americana, anthropology and archaeology, architecture and design — the profile that rewards a standing want list more than a barcode gun.

Used bookstores

Once Upon A Crime

604 W 26th St, Minneapolis, MN 55405

Whittier's crime specialist stocks mystery fiction and nothing else, a feature if that is your category and a wasted trip if it is not. Secondhand copies live in a section the store's own site labels Annex Books, kept apart from the new-arrivals hardcover, cozy and paperback shelves. Author nights run through the year — Daniel G. Miller was booked for September 2, 2026 — and the door stays open eleven to five-thirty, seven days.

Hours : Daily 11am–5:30pmWebsite
Used bookstores

Half Price Books St. Louis Park

5017 Excelsior Blvd, St. Louis Park, MN 55416

Over in St. Louis Park on Excelsior Boulevard, the nearest branch of the chain to downtown Minneapolis and the volume option on this page: secondhand books, records, films and games, a clearance run, and a counter that will quote on any of those categories every day the doors are unlocked. Chain pricing means the arbitrage sits in the mispriced collectible rather than the common paperback, and the locked case of rare and signed material deserves a pass before you leave. Store-wide events are posted per location, and this branch advertised up to 20% off over the Labor Day weekend that fell on September 5, 6 and 7 in 2026.

Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–8pm, Sun 11am–7pmWebsite
Used bookstores

Half Price Books Highland Park

2041 Ford Pkwy, St Paul, MN 55116

In Saint Paul, on Ford Parkway, the Highland Park branch with the big downstairs fiction floor and a parking lot of its own, which matters when you are working a route by car. It keeps the identical seven-day grid and the identical sell-to-us desk as the Excelsior Boulevard store, so treat the pair as a single buying option and take whichever falls on your way. Both branches were running the identical up-to-20% Labor Day notice in September 2026.

Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–8pm, Sun 11am–7pmWebsite
Used bookstores

Midway Used and Rare Books

1579 University Ave W, St Paul, MN 55104

In Saint Paul, on University Avenue in the Midway district, a general secondhand and rare house trading since 1965 and carrying both ABAA and ILAB membership, with paperbacks, children's books, science fiction, vintage comics and old magazines stacked around the scholarly material. It opens eleven to five on all seven days, with no dark day to plan around, and it asks for an appointment before you turn up with books to sell. Twin Cities Geek listed it among the passport stops for April 2026, and its online catalog was still posting fresh arrivals when read in September 2026.

Hours : Daily 11am–5pmWebsite
Used bookstores

Against the Current

1658 Grand Ave, St Paul, MN 55105

In Saint Paul, on Grand Avenue near Macalester College, Hal Johnson's small room deals in clean secondhand copies with a scholarly and literary tilt, and every item in its online catalog is written up the antiquarian way, edition by edition, with the condition spelled out. The week is short at the front and long at the back: shut Monday and Tuesday, then open from 10am, with three evenings running to 8pm. Twin Cities Geek had it on the Macalester-Groveland leg of the April 2026 bookstore passport.

Hours : Wed 10am–8pm, Thu 10am–6pm, Fri–Sat 10am–8pm, Sun 10am–6pm; closed Mon–TueWebsite
Used bookstores

Other Skies Weird Fiction

803 Dodd Rd, West Saint Paul, MN 55118

Out in West Saint Paul on Dodd Road, a specialist in fine, rare, out-of-print and limited-edition horror, science fiction, fantasy and illustration, with the expensive stock laid out in open caskets and an electric organ behind the till. The Star Tribune profiled owner Josh Hames here on October 30, 2025, under a headline about caskets, hearses and blood-stained books. He buys in the same categories he sells, which makes this the right door for genre material a general shop would tag as ordinary secondhand. Weekends only unless you arrange a weekday appointment, and Saturday runs to 9pm.

Hours : Fri noon–8pm, Sat noon–9pm, Sun noon–7pm; weekdays by appointmentWebsite
Used bookstores

The Book Lady's Library

637 Smith Ave N, Saint Paul, MN 55102

In Saint Paul, on Smith Avenue up on the West Side bluff, a shop assembled out of one person's library: the collection of the late Jeanette Kamman, known around town as the Book Lady, opened to the public with a grand opening on September 27, 2025. Twin Cities Geek counted it in April 2026 among the year's new arrivals on the Twin Cities bookstore map. Its week is four short shifts, one Wednesday evening and three mornings, so this one needs planning rather than a drop-in.

Hours : Wed 4–8pm, Thu–Sat 9am–1pm; closed Sun–TueWebsite

Library book sales

Friends of the Library sale

Friends of Linden Hills Library Book Sale

3100 W 43rd St, Minneapolis, MN 55410

The Friends chapter at Linden Hills takes Saturday, September 26, 2026, from 11am to 3:30pm, and not inside the library: the tables go up in the neighborhood park building on West 43rd Street as part of the Linden Hills Festival. Stock is the usual Hennepin mix, books weeded from the county collection plus patron donations, sorted into categories, with the money going back to the library. Festival day brings foot traffic and a queue, so arrive early if tonnage is the point.

Hours : September 26, 2026, 11am–3:30pmWebsite
Friends of the Library sale

Friends of Nokomis Library Book Sale

Nokomis Library, 5100 34th Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55417

South Minneapolis, at the Nokomis branch on 34th Avenue: Saturday, November 14, 2026, 9:30am to 3pm, with the closing hour from 2pm run as a bag sale at reduced pricing. Donations arrive through a single window, the Friday before between 10am and 3pm, and the chapter turns away damaged books, textbooks, encyclopedia sets, magazines and tapes — which tells you in advance roughly what will be on the tables. It sits in the same corner of the city as the Irreverent Bookworm, so the two fold into one morning.

Hours : November 14, 2026, 9:30am–3pmWebsite
Friends of the Library sale

Friends of Pierre Bottineau Library Book Sale

55 Broadway St NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413

Northeast Minneapolis, on Broadway Street NE: Saturday, November 21, 2026, 10am to 2pm, with the final hour from 1pm given over to a bag sale. This chapter shuts donations two weeks ahead, on November 7, and accepts no textbooks, media or magazines, so the tables lean to general adult and children's fiction and nonfiction. Four hours on one Saturday makes it a stop rather than an expedition, and it is the Hennepin sale you can fold into a Northeast morning.

Hours : November 21, 2026, 10am–2pmWebsite

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.

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Local sourcing tips

  • Five counters will take your boxes and the terms behind them sit nowhere near each other. Magers & Quinn buys daily between 10am and 7pm without an appointment, pays cash or credit worth 50% more, and gives you a day to retrieve whatever it turns down. The Irreverent Bookworm settles in credit alone at around 15% of cover price and will not look at a textbook. Midway Used and Rare wants the appointment made first, and Other Skies over in West Saint Paul buys the scarce genre material it specializes in, which is the right door for a signed Arkham House title or a run of pulps. The two Half Price Books stores will quote on anything on any open day, which is the fallback for the residue nobody else wants.
  • The autumn run is dense and it starts in Ramsey County. Roseville opens with five days from September 16 to 20, 2026, the Wednesday evening preview closed to scanners and everything after it explicitly open to them, ending in a five-dollar bag sale on the Sunday afternoon. Linden Hills follows on September 26 inside the neighborhood festival, then Union Depot takes November 7 for Rain Taxi's fair, Nokomis takes November 14 and Pierre Bottineau November 21. Both November dates finish on a reduced-price bag hour, so that is where the weight is worth carrying.
  • Sunday thins this metro out and Monday empties it. DreamHaven shuts on Sundays, Against the Current is dark Monday and Tuesday both, Other Skies opens Friday to Sunday only unless you book a weekday slot, and the Book Lady's Library runs four short shifts a week. What holds regardless: Magers & Quinn to 10pm every night, Midway at a flat eleven to five all seven days, Once Upon A Crime at eleven to five-thirty likewise, and the two Half Price Books stores to 8pm from Monday through Saturday. Eat My Words, open to 8pm six nights, is the late option on the Northeast side of the river.
  • Two loops cover almost everything, and neither needs the freeway. The south Minneapolis loop strings the Uncles and Moon Palace together at Minnehaha, then drops to DreamHaven on 38th Street and the Irreverent Bookworm on Bloomington — four rooms, one afternoon. The Saint Paul loop runs Midway on University, Against the Current on Grand, Half Price Books on Ford Parkway, the Book Lady's Library on Smith and Other Skies over the line on Dodd Road. Half Price Books keeps four more Minnesota branches beyond the pair listed above, in Roseville, Maplewood, Apple Valley and Coon Rapids, all on identical hours if you are stretching the day out.
  • Two closures, one frozen website and a whole category of shops that only sell new. Sixth Chamber Used Books traded on Grand Avenue in Saint Paul from 1995, announced the end in December 2018 and locked its door the following March, so strike it off any list that still carries it. Paperback Exchange took a water main break through the floor in February 2025 and, as Twin Cities Geek reported in April 2026, still had not reopened, though the team keeps appearing at pop-ups. Then there is unclehugo.com, whose front page still leads with June 2020 bulletins about the fire and the crowdfunding while a single line near the top notes that the stores now trade on East 31st Street. And Inkwell, Next Chapter, Birchbark, Wild Rumpus, Milkweed and Comma are all fine bookshops that sell new stock — leave them off a sourcing route.

Frequently asked questions

Where can I find cheap used books in Minneapolis?

The library sales set the floor, and the last hour of each one sets it lower still. Roseville finishes its five-day September 2026 run with a bag sale from noon on the Sunday, five dollars for whatever fits in a grocery bag apart from puzzles; Nokomis drops to bag pricing for its closing hour on November 14, and Pierre Bottineau does the same from 1pm on November 21. Among the year-round rooms, the two Half Price Books branches run permanent clearance shelves, and the Book House cut everything 20% over the Independent Bookstore Day weekend of April 2026, with poetry held at 20% off for that whole month. Moon Palace and Once Upon A Crime keep their secondhand copies in a defined section rather than mixed through the store, which is what you want when you are pricing by the shelf.

Where do I sell used books in Minneapolis?

Three real answers and a fallback. Magers & Quinn is the one to try first because it pays actual money: cash on the spot, or store credit set 50% above the cash number, judged at a counter that runs 10am to 7pm every day with no appointment and no cap on the size of the load, though anything over ten boxes deserves a phone call and anything over 800 volumes can bring a buyer to your door. The Irreverent Bookworm settles in credit alone at about 15% of cover, which works out well on a recent trade paperback and badly on anything scarce, while Midway Used and Rare covers the scholarly and antiquarian end by appointment. Triage before the car gets loaded: shoot one photo of a packed shelf, let BiblioScan pull every spine off it, and a live resale number comes back per title — enough to split off the few titles worth an Amazon listing of your own and leave the crate that belongs on somebody else's trade counter. Half Price Books takes the remainder any day of the week.

Which day is best for book hunting in Minneapolis?

Saturday, by a distance. Every shop here that publishes hours is open, Other Skies stretches to 9pm, and all four dated events land on one — September 26, November 7, November 14 and November 21 in 2026. Friday is the sensible second: Against the Current and Magers & Quinn both run late, Other Skies opens at noon, and the Roseville sale is mid-week by then rather than picked over. Sunday costs you DreamHaven, and with Against the Current dark on Monday and Tuesday the start of the week is for listing rather than buying.

When is the big library book sale in Minneapolis?

The longest run of them is not in Hennepin County at all. The Ramsey County Library Friends run five days at the Roseville branch from September 16 to 20, 2026, opening with a members-only Wednesday evening where scanners and large containers are banned and continuing from Thursday morning with a written welcome for booksellers with scanners, plus the offer of a cart set aside in a side room so a big purchase does not jam the aisles. On the Hennepin side the sales are smaller and chapter-run: Linden Hills on September 26 inside the neighborhood festival, Nokomis on November 14 and Pierre Bottineau on November 21, each a single Saturday finishing on a discounted bag hour. Rain Taxi's book festival at Union Depot on November 7 is a different animal again, a free fair of 140 exhibitors with the organizers' own used book and record sale running inside it.

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