Red Deer's secondhand book trade sits mostly within a short walk of the downtown core. Nearly New Books, just west of downtown across from the Superstore, the Friends' shelves inside the library's Downtown Branch on 49 Street and reNew Thrift on Gaetz Avenue are all within about 650 metres of one another, straight-line, with Akashika Manga's used shelf roughly a kilometre further north on Gaetz. Mission Thrift trades from the Bower side of the city, a little over 2 km straight-line south of reNew. Two entries sit outside the city limits: Next Chapter Thrift out on a range road in Red Deer County, and Second Glance in the neighbouring city of Lacombe. Every dollar figure below is in Canadian dollars.
Only two of these places take books in trade. Nearly New runs on trade credit, with cash kept for a handful of selected titles, and Second Glance calls itself a book exchange as well as a used bookstore. Akashika is a manga retailer that sells a used section alongside its new stock, and everything else is donation-fed. The three thrift shops and the library Friends sell what the public drops off, which keeps prices low and also makes them the place for the boxes nobody will buy. For anything worth real money, the usual exits are Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji for local pickup, or the national sites, where eBay.ca sits alongside AbeBooks and Amazon.ca, to reach distant buyers.
A search engine will steer you wrong twice here. Both big thrift chains have a Red Deer branch along 50 Avenue by Bower Place, one a Value Village and the other run by the Salvation Army, but each one's web page lists books in a sentence copied word for word onto its other branches, so neither makes this list as a book source. And the website at nextchapterthrift.com belongs to a different organization, a seniors' ministry, not to the rescue-league shop north of the city, which posts on Facebook and Instagram instead.
Used bookstoresNearly New Books
1-4936 53 Ave, Red Deer, AB T4N 5J9
A family-run shop that opened in Red Deer in 1997 and fills a 4,000-square-foot unit across from the Superstore, in the space Bibles for Missions once had, with roughly 40,000 books by its own count. Its trading policy prices most stock at 60% of the Canadian cover and pays in store credit, at 30% of cover for pocketbooks, trade paperbacks and children's books and 20% for hardcovers, with credit that never expires and has no cash value. Cash is paid only for selected books, at a negotiated price the shop puts at usually 10% of list, and anything it turns down is given to charity after two days. Its Facebook page posted winter holiday hours on November 27, 2025, and while its website gives five days, Tuesday through Saturday, Yellow Pages shows longer days that include Mondays, so check before a Monday visit.
Hours: Tue–Sat 10am–4pmWebsite Used bookstore & book exchangeSecond Glance Books 2.0
1-4842 46 St, Lacombe, AB T4L 2B4
Up in Lacombe, some 22 km north-northeast of downtown Red Deer by straight-line measure, a shop whose Instagram bio calls it a used book store and book exchange with books in every category and for every age. The Lacombe & District Chamber of Commerce featured it on July 24, 2026, describing thousands of gently used books across every genre, from classics and children's stories to local history. Discounts here are games of chance: Facebook posts in 2025 had customers drawing a card in February, spinning a wheel in April and rolling dice in August, with the card and dice rounds promising at least 5% off and a free book on a joker or a double. On July 12, 2026, an Instagram post offered another 5% to anyone who could say where a photo had been taken.
Hours: Mon 10am–3pm, Tue–Wed 10am–5:30pm, Thu 10am–6pm, Fri 10am–5:30pm, Sat 10am–5pm; closed SunWebsite Nonprofit thrift storereNew Thrift Store
4608 50 Ave, Red Deer, AB T4N 3Z8
A downtown nonprofit on Gaetz Avenue that describes itself as a 10,000-square-foot store giving all of its profits back to the Red Deer community, and that asked for more volunteers in an August 2025 post. Books get their own attention: a Facebook post on February 13, 2025 announced that the newest volunteer had refreshed the whole book section. On March 9, 2026, another post told shoppers the hidden gems weren't only on the clothing racks, pairing the line with a books emoji. Posts that March kept restating a five-day week, dark on Sundays and Mondays.
Hours: Tue–Sat 9:30am–5pmWebsite Mission Thrift StoreMission Thrift Store Red Deer
2823 Bremner Ave, Red Deer, AB T4R 1S2
South of downtown on Bremner Avenue, near Bower Place, the Red Deer branch of the Mission Thrift network, which a Bible League Canada Facebook video of September 21, 2026 says has served the community since 1992, with new and gently used clothing, furniture, books and toys. In the fall of 2025 its Instagram made one Monday a month a book day: the store cut every book by half on September 8 and again on November 3, 2025, the September date landing on the 8th because, as the post put it, that was the month's first Monday with the doors open. A March 30, 2026 post invited people in to hunt through a wide selection of books. Confirm the week on the Facebook page before building a Monday around it.
Where can I find cheap used books in Red Deer?
Head for the charity shelves. Next Chapter Thrift, north of the city in Red Deer County, posted a $1 to $3 range for its books in August 2026. Mission Thrift on Bremner Avenue ran half-price book Mondays in the fall of 2025, announced on Instagram. The donated stock inside the Downtown Branch, and the Friends' fall sale there in late October 2026, are the other low-cost option, while reNew on 50 Avenue gave its book section a refresh in February 2025.
Where do I sell used books in Red Deer?
Nearly New Books is alone among these eight in spelling out what it pays: never-expiring credit set at 30 or 20 percent of the Canadian cover depending on format, and cash only on selected titles, usually around a tenth of list. Up in Lacombe, Second Glance bills itself as a book exchange. Anything better goes online, through Kijiji or Marketplace locally or AbeBooks and eBay.ca further afield. Before choosing, photograph the shelf in BiblioScan: the app returns a resale estimate for each spine it can identify, and the split between listing and trading sorts itself out.
When is the big library book sale in Red Deer?
The library Friends' fall 2026 sale fills the Downtown Branch at 4818 49 Street over Thursday to Sunday, October 22 to 25, with members admitted a day earlier, from 4pm on the Wednesday. The library calendar has it opening at 10am on each public day, closing at 7:30pm on the Thursday and at 2:30pm by the weekend, and the Friends take cash only. Joining costs $10 per person or $20 per family.
Which day is best for book hunting in Red Deer?
Saturday gives you the widest choice among the entries with published hours, with Nearly New, reNew, Second Glance and the Downtown Branch shelves all open. In the fall of 2025 Mission Thrift gave the month's first open Monday its own draw with half-price books, and Second Glance opens on Mondays until 3pm, while Nearly New and reNew are closed. On a Sunday, the Friends' shelves inside the Downtown Branch are the only entry on this page with a regular Sunday opening.