The secondhand book supply in Vermont's capital fits into a very small compass. Downtown, Bear Pond Books at 77 Main Street shelves used copies beside its new stock, and the Kellogg-Hubbard Library runs a permanent sale room in its basement about two hundred yards further up the same street. Everything after that pair needs a car: Barre to the southeast, Plainfield due east, Northfield to the south-southwest, Waterbury to the west, and Stowe over the Lamoille County line to the north. Six of the seven entries below are library operations, and every entry outside Montpelier leads with the town it stands in.
Published price grids are what make the driving worth it. The Kellogg-Hubbard basement runs $4 for an adult hardcover down to $1 for a mass market paperback. Leonard's Bargain Basement, in the Aldrich Public Library basement over in Barre, asks $1 for a hardcover or trade paperback, half that for a small paperback and a quarter on its children's and media shelf, while Northfield's Brown Public Library store holds an adult hardcover at $1 and a children's softcover at 25 cents. All three groups post those numbers themselves. Selling is the narrower story: Bear Pond is the only stop below that pays, it works by appointment, and it settles in store credit.
Two facts age an older list for this county. The first is water — the store's own About page records the July 2023 Montpelier flood doing extensive damage to Bear Pond Books, which rebuilt from the floors up and reopened two months later. The second is a merger: Rivendell Books, the town's used bookstore, joined Bear Pond in 2015, which is why every used copy now wears a blue dot on its spine, and why any roundup still sending you to a separate secondhand shop on Main Street is out of date. One more thing worth stating plainly, because a US search will surface it first: Half Price Books has no Vermont branch, and its own store finder lists 19 states, none in New England.
Used bookstoresBear Pond Books
77 Main St, Montpelier, VT 05602
Downtown Montpelier's general bookstore, on Main Street since 1973 and at this number since the flood of 1992 moved it out of 100 Main, with used copies shelved alongside the new and flagged by a blue dot sticker on the spine. The store explains the source itself: the secondhand side arrived with the 2015 merger with Rivendell Books, and none of that inventory is listed on the website, so the shelves are the only catalog. Trades run by appointment on weekday mornings and on the month's first Saturday, two bags or two boxes a visit, appraised while you wait and paid in store credit that lapses a year after issue or last use. It was still booking author nights through the fall of 2026, with Miciah Bay Gault reading from The Nobody Code on Thursday, September 3, 2026.
Hours : Mon–Fri 10am–6pm, Sat 10am–5pm, Sun 11am–4pmWebsite Library book shopKHL Book Shop
Kellogg-Hubbard Library, 135 Main St, Montpelier, VT 05602
A permanent sale room in the basement of the Kellogg-Hubbard Library, two hundred yards up Main Street from Bear Pond, holding donated books, audiobooks, CDs and DVDs and keeping the library's own hours exactly. The library prints the whole grid: adult and young-adult hardcovers at $4, paperbacks at $3, mass markets at $1, then $3, $2 and $1 across children's hardcovers, paperbacks and board books, with specialty titles marked individually and everything paid for upstairs at the main circulation desk, by card or contactless if you prefer. Stock arrives through donation events — the one the library put on its calendar for February 21, 2026 ran 3pm to 5pm — and through 15-minute drop-off appointments booked online at one box apiece. Watch one quirk in the timetable: the library says it opens at noon on the first Wednesday of every month for staff training.
Hours : Mon 10am–8pm, Tue 10am–5:30pm, Wed 10am–8pm, Thu–Fri 10am–5:30pm, Sat 10am–2pm; closed SunWebsite Friends of the Library saleLeonard's Bargain Basement
Aldrich Public Library, 6 Washington St, Barre, VT 05641
Down in Barre, 5.7 miles southeast, the Aldrich Public Library's Friends group keeps a sale going all year on the basement level at $1 a hardcover or trade paperback, 50 cents a mass market and 25 cents for children's items and media. It sits inside a building that unlocks at 10am from Monday to Saturday and runs to 6pm on weekdays, with parking and the wheelchair access both around the back off Jefferson Street. The same Friends run the Authors at the Aldrich series in the Milne Community Room, and the library's public calendar carried a Book and Jewelry Sale for July 24 and 25, 2026, in that same room. Donations are governed by a guidelines sheet the Friends publish as a PDF, so read it before you fill the trunk.
Hours : Library hours: Mon–Fri 10am–6pm, Sat 10am–2pm; closed SunWebsite Library used book storeBrown Public Library Used Book Store
93 S Main St, Northfield, VT 05663
Out in Northfield, 8.7 miles south-southwest, the Brown Public Library runs a used book store it describes as open whenever the library itself is open. The posted grid: $1 for an adult hardcover, 75 cents for a large format paperback, a mass market at 50 cents, 50 and 25 cents across the children's shelves, $1 for a DVD or an audiobook CD, and VHS tapes for nothing at all. Anything you buy enters you in a monthly prize drawing, which costs you nothing on a stack you were carrying to the desk anyway. The bigger event lands on Labor Day weekend: the library posted its 2025 book sale and raffle for August 30, August 31 and September 1, 9am to 3pm daily, with raffle tickets at $5 each or three for $10, and listed the 2026 edition for September 5 to 7 in the library Community Room, 9am to 3pm daily, with the books sold by donation.
Hours : Mon 10am–6pm, Tue noon–8pm, Wed–Thu 10am–6pm, Fri 10am–5pm, Sat 10am–2pm; closed SunWebsite Where can I find cheap used books in Montpelier?
Start in the Kellogg-Hubbard Library basement on Main Street, where the room trades whenever the library does and the prices are posted: $4 an adult hardcover, $3 a paperback and $1 a mass market, with the children's shelves running $3, $2 and $1. If a dollar is your ceiling you will have to drive. Leonard's Bargain Basement under the Aldrich Public Library in Barre holds hardcovers and trade paperbacks at $1, small paperbacks at 50 cents and children's items and media at 25 cents, and the Brown Public Library store in Northfield comes in at the same dollar for an adult hardcover while giving VHS tapes away for free. At Bear Pond Books the used copies stand alongside the new ones, flagged by a blue dot on the spine, and on Sunday, September 27, 2026 the Cutler Memorial Library Friends will be running a bag price in Plainfield with some copies given away.
Where do I sell used books in Montpelier?
Only one of the stops below pays for books, and it hands back credit rather than cash. Bear Pond Books takes trades by appointment on (802) 229-0774, mornings from Monday to Friday, and on the first Saturday in each month; it holds you to two bags or two boxes, looks the load over while you wait, issues store credit valid twelve months from issue or last use, and publishes both the subjects it wants and the ones it refuses, textbooks and advance reader copies among them. Everybody else here is a library group living on donations, so a box that fails the Bear Pond list still has somewhere to go: a Kellogg-Hubbard donation event, or the Stowe Friends' rear stairwell on Pond Street. Photograph the shelf first — BiblioScan turns one shot into a resale price per spine, so within a minute you can see which handful is worth selling yourself and which belongs in the trade bag.
When is the Friends of the Library sale in Montpelier?
Montpelier itself does not run a once-a-year sale. The Kellogg-Hubbard basement sells donated hardcovers, paperbacks, audiobooks, CDs and DVDs for however long the doors stay open, which is the year-round equivalent, and it restocks through donation events like the one it scheduled for February 21, 2026. The dated Friends sales all sit in neighboring towns: Plainfield first, on the Cutler Memorial Library lawn on Saturday, September 26 and Sunday, September 27, 2026 under tents, then Stowe, which gives three weeks to it, July 3 through July 24, 2027. Northfield sits between the two models, keeping a used book store open all year at the Brown Public Library and adding a Labor Day weekend sale and raffle, which in 2025 ran from August 30 to September 1.
Which day is best for book hunting in Montpelier?
Monday or Wednesday if you are staying in town, because those are the two days the Kellogg-Hubbard Library runs to 8pm and the basement gets its longest window — with one exception, since the library opens at noon on each month's first Wednesday for staff training. Bear Pond Books keeps identical hours Monday to Friday and is the only permanent stop here with published Sunday hours. If the plan involves driving, Saturday reaches everywhere but hands you the week's shortest window: Barre, Northfield and Waterbury all close at 2pm, so work from the far end inward and finish on Main Street, where Bear Pond stays open to 5pm.