Nashville's secondhand trade has no single street, but it does have a pair of doors on one. Half Price Books occupies 21 White Bridge Pike and Elder's Bookstore sits at 101, both of them on the same West Nashville road — one a chain floor trading until 8pm, the other an antiquarian house the founder started in 1930 and his son still runs. Everything after that is a drive. McKay's fills a two-story warehouse on Old Hickory Boulevard out in Bellevue, three small shops sit scattered across East Nashville, two booths hide inside an antiques mall near Opryland, another keeps a buy-back desk out in Old Hickory Village, and two of the best stops are over the county line in Franklin and Brentwood, each flagged in its opening line below.
Sort the boxes before you load them, because the buy counters here run on six incompatible systems. McKay's is the industrial one: totes from the lobby, an order number from the Greeter desk, cash or trade credit at the end, a state or federal photo ID before anyone hands over money, and a published reservation that it may cap how much it takes from dealers when the queue is long. Half Price Books pays cash only and only in person, and says outright that no buyer there will price a book it has not physically handled. Rhino Booksellers wants a phone call and an appointment and turns away textbooks and coursework flat; Defunct Books deals in every subject on its shelves; Duckbill pays 25 percent of retail in credit, but only on like-new copies of titles it already carries; Elder's is after single rarities rather than cartons.
Three closures rewrote the map faster than the guidebooks. McKay's shut its Knoxville store on Sunday, May 3, 2026 after four decades, leaving this branch and Chattanooga as the chain's only Tennessee floors. Inside Davidson County the library calendar has thinned too: Green Hills branch, whose Friends group ran the autumn sale that used to anchor the year, closed on January 4, 2026 for its first full renovation in 25 years with reopening penciled for early 2027, and Edmondson Pike went dark on August 10, 2026 for HVAC work. BookManBookWoman in Hillsboro Village and Black Dog Book Co on Granny White Pike are both long shut, whatever the older directories still list.
Used bookstoresMcKay's Nashville
636 Old Hickory Blvd, Nashville, TN 37209
Out in Bellevue, west of the city, two stories of books, records, movies, games, instruments and electronics, every item of it carried in by a customer rather than ordered from a distributor. Selling is a procedure rather than a conversation: pack the store's own totes in the lobby, take a number from the Greeter desk, pick a Day Order, a Drop Off or a Large Order by volume, and collect cash or trade credit against a photo ID, at a figure the store states is not negotiable. Read the refusal list before you drive out — no library copies current or discarded, no Reader's Digest condensed fiction, no ring-bound titles, no encyclopedia set older than ten years — and note the flat warning on the same page that fiction earns very little. The chain closed its Knoxville branch on May 3, 2026, which leaves this floor and Chattanooga as the only two left in the state.
Hours : Mon–Thu 9am–9pm, Fri–Sat 9am–10pm, Sun 10am–7pm (Labor Day to Memorial Day)Website Used bookstoresHalf Price Books Belle Meade
21 White Bridge Pike, Nashville, TN 37205
The chain's only Middle Tennessee branch, at the lower end of White Bridge Pike, dealing in used books, vinyl, discs and video games seven days a week and keeping the latest weekday evenings of anywhere on this page. Its buying terms are the strictest in the metro and are published in full: cash, in person, valid government photo ID, no estimate from photographs or written lists, and the seller has to stay on the premises until the evaluation finishes. Its own store page carried notice of a Labor Day discount running September 5 through 7, 2026, plus a Throne of Glass book club set for September 19, so the events feed is genuinely maintained. Elder's Bookstore stands further along the same street, which makes this the single pairing in the city you can do without moving the car twice.
Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–8pm, Sun 11am–7pmWebsite Used bookstoresRhino Booksellers
4918 Charlotte Ave, Nashville, TN 37209
A Sylvan Park warren of floor-to-ceiling shelving owned by the songwriter Fred Koller, weighted toward the arts, photography, music and film, with vintage vinyl and a rack of instruments among the stock — StyleBlueprint's guide to the city's independent bookshops, dated June 1, 2025, describes it in exactly that order, resident cat included. Selling runs on a phone call rather than a queue: ring 615-279-0310 to arrange an appointment for gently used hardbacks, paperbacks, records or instruments, and expect a refusal on textbooks and coursework, which the shop rules out in writing on its front page. No opening times appear on that site at all; the grid below is what two business directories independently list, so treat it as indicative and telephone ahead if the drive is a long one.
Hours : Mon–Sat 11am–5pm; closed SunWebsite Used bookstoresElder's Bookstore
101 White Bridge Pike, Nashville, TN 37209
A converted mid-century unit in a tired strip mall with BOOKS lettered in green above the window, housing what the shop itself calls the oldest bookstore in continuous operation in Tennessee: Charles Elder opened it on Fourth Avenue in 1930 and his son Randy has owned it since. The Blaze ran a long reported visit on October 30, 2025, describing the notice on the door asking customers to silence their phones, the glass-topped map table with rolled maps stacked underneath it like shells, and the cabinet of Fugitive and Agrarian first appearances behind the desk. What is on the shelves is the antiquarian end of the city — Southern literature, early Tennessee history, atlases, manuscripts and ephemera, plus the store's own reprints of Nashville history titles — and the counter buys rarities rather than cartons. The five-hour day is the real constraint: the door opens at 10 and it is locked again by 3.
Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–3pmWebsite Used bookstoresLandmark Booksellers
114 E Main St, Franklin, TN 37064
Down in Franklin, over the Williamson County line, inside what StyleBlueprint's June 1, 2025 guide identifies as the oldest commercial building in the historic downtown, its front columns cut from solid poplar trunks. Joel and Carol Tomlin opened it in 2005 and the stock now runs to 35,000 new, pre-owned and rare titles, leaning hard on Southern Americana, classic fiction, local authors and the Great Wall of spines along one side. It keeps a seven-day week and shuts only for Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, and the author calendar is busy — six signings and readings were booked into September 2026 alone.
Hours : Daily 9am–7pmWebsite Friends of the Library saleFriends of the Brentwood Library Book Sale
Brentwood Library, 8109 Concord Rd, Brentwood, TN 37027
Out in Brentwood, off Concord Road, the Friends run a quarterly sale they size at over 17,000 items with nothing priced above $3 — vintage and hardcover at that ceiling, pocket-sized paperbacks at 50 cents, plus withdrawn library copies, audiobooks, DVDs, CDs, vinyl, puzzles, software and framed artwork. The next edition falls on October 1 to 4, 2026, with January 28 to 31 and April 22 to 25 already posted for 2027, and the Thursday opens with a members-only session you can join at the door. One caution about their page: the October heading sits directly above a time grid still labeled with July weekdays, so confirm the opening times before you set an alarm for it.
Hours : October 1–4, 2026Website Where can I find cheap used books in Nashville?
Start at the very bottom of the market. The Goodwill outlet on Berry Road charges by weight, and its operator prices a hardbound book at 59 cents there against the $2.99 the same volume would carry in a Goodwill store. Shook About Books opens its shelves at a dollar, ThriftSmart runs genre-sorted stock at thrift prices in Tusculum, and the Brentwood Friends cap their entire October sale at $3 with pocket paperbacks down at 50 cents. McKay's is the volume play rather than the bargain one: prices are fair, but the reason to give it a whole day is that two floors of stock keep rotating. And the quietest option is the honor box in the Franklin library rotunda, where whatever the Friends have not already listed on eBay simply sits on a shelf.
Where do I sell used books in Nashville?
McKay's absorbs the most and asks the least: fill its totes, take a number, walk out with cash or trade credit, bearing in mind two things it states in writing — fiction pays badly, and it can limit what it accepts from dealers when the store is heaving. At Half Price Books the money is cash and the whole transaction has to happen at the desk, since nothing gets valued sight unseen, from pictures or from a typed inventory. Rhino buys by appointment and turns down textbooks, Elder's wants scarce single volumes rather than cartons, and Defunct Books will look at anything in any category. Sort the pile before any of it moves. Shoot the shelf spine-out, feed the frame to BiblioScan, and it prices each title it recognizes at whatever that edition is worth to a buyer the morning you photograph it, so the line between something you list yourself and plain counter weight stops being guesswork before a single box gets lifted.
Which day is best for book hunting in Nashville?
Saturday, and nothing else comes near. Every posted schedule takes it in — Elder's 10am to 3pm, Rhino 11am to 5pm, the Music Valley booths 10am to 5pm, McKay's right through to 10pm — and both of the library sales that run at all take in a Saturday. Thursday is the useful second choice: Shook About Books stays open to 7pm, East Nashville Books is trading at all (it shuts Monday through Wednesday), and the Franklin and Brentwood sales each open with a Thursday evening members' session. Avoid Tuesday, when two shops close outright and two more retreat behind appointments.
When is the Friends of the Library sale in Nashville?
Not inside Nashville itself, as it turns out — the two Friends groups that publish firm dates are both beyond the Davidson County line. The Williamson County Friends run one a quarter in Franklin, and the last of their 2026 set opens on the Thursday evening of November 6 with a members' preview, then trades publicly through the Saturday before a Sunday bag sale at $10 a load. Brentwood keeps the same rhythm at its Concord Road library, and its next one covers the first weekend of October 2026, with two further editions already posted for the following January and April. Inside the city the branch calendar is unsettled: renovation took Green Hills off the board in January 2026, and mechanical work closed Edmondson Pike from mid-August.