Where to buy used books in Sacramento

Updated 9/3/2026

Sacramento keeps its secondhand books along a few straight lines instead of packing them into one quarter. Midtown carries two within half a mile of each other, Time Tested on 21st Street and Amatoria on F Street, and the R Street corridor adds Beers a mile west of the first and southwest of the second. South of downtown the pair worth chaining sits on two parallel streets, a general secondhand room on Freeport Boulevard and, under a mile west on South Land Park Drive, a branch library that sells donations. Beyond those, you are driving: the volunteer warehouse hides in the industrial belt off Power Inn Road, and the suburban stops stretch from Elk Grove in the south up to Citrus Heights and Roseville in the northeast.

Volunteers run more of this map than the trade does, and their end of it is what sets the prices. Library support groups hold eight of the fourteen addresses below, and their arithmetic differs from a shop's, because nothing on those shelves was priced against a marketplace listing. Placer County is the extreme case, with three separate Friends shops in Roseville alone, one inside each library. West of the causeway, Davis has a nonprofit storefront on 2nd Street staffed six days a week by the same kind of crew.

Older lists carry two branch operations the county system says are shut. Sacramento Public Library posts on its own branch pages that Elk Grove is closed and will move to a new site in fall 2026, and that Carmichael is temporarily closed for construction, which parks a lobby sale at each; the final Carmichael date on the library calendar was Saturday, May 9, 2026. The regional antiquarian fair is a stranger case: sacbookfair.com resolves, but its page carries no live edition at all, and the last one written into the file, a March 25, 2023 date at the Scottish Rite Temple on H Street, sits commented out of the source. What the calendar did carry was the Sacramento Book Crawl of April 24 to 26, 2026, three days that ABRIDGED, the local news arm of PBS KVIE, described as a Read the Region route through more than a dozen mom-and-pop shops from Elk Grove and Granite Bay to Woodland.

Spot map

The best spots

New and used bookstore

Beers Books

712 R St, Sacramento, CA 95811

Beers has sold books in Sacramento in one form or another since about 1936, when Nellie Beer clerked at an 8th Street shop that later took her name, and it reached this R Street address in 2023, the Sacramento Bee covering the soft opening at 712 R St on Saturday, August 26, 2023 after a developer took the S Street building for apartments. The counter pays a quarter of the in-store selling price in cash or by check, or a third in credit spendable on used stock, and valid ID is required either way. Appointments book two or more weeks out and cover four file-sized boxes apiece, while unbooked sellers are held to ten titles or fewer, so one phone call settles whether the drive pays. It was one of the stops on the Read the Region crawl that ran from April 24 to 26, 2026, the Independent Bookstore Day route the PBS KVIE news service ABRIDGED wrote up that spring.

Hours : Daily 11am–7pmWebsite
Books and vinyl

Time Tested Books

1114 21st St, Sacramento, CA 95811

Trading on 21st Street between L and K since 1981, shelving new and used titles beside vinyl in a turn-of-the-century building, with the rare and obscure end listed through AbeBooks. It buys and trades both books and records, and gives 50 percent trade back on anything originally bought here, which makes your own old receipts worth more than a stranger's. The browsing hours it labels as current for 2026 do not open until one in the afternoon on weekdays, so a Midtown morning has to start somewhere else. Its own blog announced Sunday jazz sessions with Ross Hammond on August 2, 2026, free to attend at 4pm, with the register staying open until six.

Hours : Mon–Fri 1pm–6pm, Sat 10am–5pm, Sun 11am–3pmWebsite
Used and new bookstore

Crawford's Books

5301 Freeport Blvd #200, Sacramento, CA 95822

Open seven days on Freeport Boulevard, with a clearance table on the sidewalk out front every first Saturday at $1 a book or $5 for a full bag; the shop posted the September 5, 2026 edition for 10am to 3pm and closed the store entirely on Monday the 7th for Labor Day. Store credit is available whenever the door is open, but cash only at certain hours the shop declines to publish, so call ahead if that is what you need. Limit yourself to two or three bags or boxes, arrive at least an hour before closing, and expect hardback fiction, textbooks, encyclopedias, magazines and anything dated from business, computing, diet, fashion, politics or travel guides to go straight back in the car. Credit spends on used copies alone and every used purchase carries a floor in real money: $2 up to $10, $5 above that, $10 once the total passes $75.

Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–6pm, Sun 11am–5pmWebsite
Friends of the Library warehouse

The Book Den

8250 Belvedere Ave, Ste E, Sacramento, CA 95826

A small storefront in front and a warehouse behind it, operated by the Friends of the Sacramento Public Library from an industrial unit off Power Inn Road, with every warehouse item priced at $2 or under and coffee table books, VHS tapes, cassettes and magazines given away outright. ABRIDGED, the news service of PBS station KVIE, reported on April 21, 2026 that the place holds 80,000 to 100,000 items at any moment and is kept running by over a hundred active volunteers under manager Pam Whiteley. Members take a further 30 percent off, and the group's calendar sets $6-a-bag warehouse sales for September 12, by appointment for members, and September 19 for everyone, plus a teacher sale on October 4 and an antiquarian sale on October 18 from 9am to 3pm. Know before you drive out that the higher-value material gets pulled for the group's Amazon and eBay listings, so what stays on the shelves is what survived that pass.

Hours : Wed, Fri and Sat 9am–3pm; donations Wed and Sat 9am–noonWebsite
Fine art, rare and antiquarian

Amatoria Fine Art Books

1831 F St, Ste A, Sacramento, CA 95811

Miranda Culp and Laurelin Gilmore became the owners in late 2020 of the collection Richard Leon Press had spent 35 years assembling in Sacramento, after an out-of-town buyer hired them to sell it down and box it up and the shop turned out to have no intention of closing; Press died on November 13, 2020. Art monographs, exhibition catalogs, first editions, prints and ephemera fill a Boulevard Park storefront half a mile north of Time Tested. Selling runs on a narrow rail: appointments only, between the 1st and the 15th of each month, on a Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday afternoon between twelve and four, with a current California ID needed for cash, anything above $300 of retail value consigned rather than bought outright, and no textbooks, moldy copies or anything out of a smoker's house considered at all. The shop's events blog last posted on July 30, 2026, publishing the video of the Rituals of Mine set played in the room for The Stacks on May 27, 2026 and filmed by ABRIDGED PBS KVIE.

Hours : Wed–Sat 10am–6pm, Sun 10am–4pm; closed Mon and TueWebsite

All spots by type

Used bookstores

Chain used bookstore

Half Price Books Citrus Heights

7975 Greenback Ln, Citrus Heights, CA 95610

Out in Citrus Heights sits the only Half Price Books within reach of the state capital: walk the chain's California page and it names four stores in the entire state, the other three being Concord, Dublin and Fremont, all of them Bay Area drives. The same 10am-to-8pm day runs all week, and the chain's own buying policy is to pay cash in person for books, printed and recorded merchandise and limited software, evaluated on the spot with a government photo ID and no offers made from photos or lists. Its store page carried customer reviews dated April 9 and May 29, 2026, and posted a Labor Day discount reaching 20 percent from Saturday, September 5 to Monday the 7th, 2026.

Hours : Daily 10am–8pmWebsite
Bookstore and cafe

A Seat at the Table Books

9257 Laguna Springs Dr, Ste 130, Elk Grove, CA 95758

Down in Elk Grove, this bookstore and cafe off Laguna Springs Drive keeps a secondhand section beside its new stock, stocked from donations rather than bought over a counter, weighted toward young adult, manga and graphic novels, adult fiction, picture books and middle grade with a thin run of nonfiction behind them, and priced from $2 up. Do not haul boxes here expecting a payout, or even a drop-off: the store retired its trade credit program and honors only balances earned on or before March 15, 2025, and its own donations page states in bold that it is not accepting used books at present, the sole exception being copies bought there. It publishes no opening times on its own site, pointing shoppers to its Google listing instead, while stating that it trades 363 days a year and shuts only for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Website

Library book sales

Friends of the Library shop

Logos Books

513 2nd St, Davis, CA 95616

Over in Davis, the Friends of the Davis Public Library staff this 2nd Street storefront themselves, as the retail outlet for the thousands of books the group takes in each month, and the same volunteers cashier, curate individual sections and build the window displays. It opens six mornings out of seven, closing only on Mondays, and hangs local art on its walls as a participant in the Davis Downtown Second Friday ArtAbout. The same volunteers were advertising a three-day sale for September 4 to 6, 2026 in the library a mile north, which is where the bulk of those donations actually clears.

Hours : Tue–Thu 10am–6pm, Fri–Sat 10am–8pm, Sun 10am–6pm; closed MonWebsite
Friends of the Library shop

Downtown Friends Bookstore

225 Taylor St, Roseville, CA 95678

Up in Roseville, the largest of the three shops the Friends of the Roseville Public Library operate works out of the Downtown Library on Taylor Street, with fiction, mysteries, fantasy and teen titles on one side, history, biography, science, art, religion, cooking and military history on the other, sections of antique and vintage stock, a Special Collection of academic work and literature, and an entire room of children's books. The same building hosts the quarterly sales, the next of them published for Saturday, October 24, 2026, doors at 10am and members admitted at 9:30am. Sale pricing is flat and low, at $1 for a children's hardback and 50 cents for a children's paperback against $3 and $2 for adult hardbacks and paperbacks, and the volunteers take cash, checks and cards alike.

Hours : Library hours (July 1–September 11 schedule): Mon–Thu 9am–8pm, Fri–Sat 10am–8pm, Sun noon–8pmWebsite
Friends of the Library shop

Maidu Friends Bookstore

1530 Maidu Dr, Roseville, CA 95661

Also in Roseville, inside the library in Maidu Park two miles east of the downtown branch, this is the cheap end of the Roseville Friends' three rooms: most children's titles sell at 50 cents to $1 and most adult titles at $2 to $3, and the shelves change as fast as the donations land. The volunteers pitch it as a treasure hunt rather than a browse, which is fair warning that four short visits beat one long one. None of the group's published sale dates, a list running out to Saturday, October 16, 2027, fall here, because those all happen downtown; this room simply trades whenever the library is unlocked.

Hours : Library hours: Mon–Wed 9am–6pm, Thu 9am–5pm, Fri–Sat 10am–5pm; closed SunWebsite
Friends of the Library shop

Martha Riley Friends Bookstore

1501 Pleasant Grove Blvd, Roseville, CA 95747

The third Roseville room stands in Mahany Park on Pleasant Grove Boulevard, three miles northwest of the Taylor Street branch, and its own crew describes the stock as the quality end, fiction and nonfiction across many subjects, with occasional children's book sales staged from the shop itself. It keeps the identical closed-on-Sunday library week as the Maidu room. Since the big events stay downtown, including the one booked for Saturday, October 24, 2026, treat this one as a browse rather than a place to fill a crate.

Hours : Library hours: Mon–Wed 9am–6pm, Thu 9am–5pm, Fri–Sat 10am–5pm; closed SunWebsite
Friends of the Library sale

Belle Cooledge Friends Book Sale

5600 South Land Park Dr, Sacramento, CA 95822

This South Land Park branch sets out a Friends table on the month's third Saturday, 10am to 2pm, a rhythm the library's Friends group publishes on its branch page. The library's own event calendar has the coming ones down for September 19, October 17, November 21 and December 19, 2026, each billed as gently used and donated books and materials. It stands under a mile from the Freeport Boulevard shop, so the pair works as one stop; the branch closes Sundays and Mondays, which makes a Saturday the only day a sale and a proper library visit coincide.

Hours : Library hours: Tue–Sat 10am–6pm; sale third Sat 10am–2pmWebsite
Friends of the Library sale

Arden-Dimick Friends Book Sale

891 Watt Ave, Sacramento, CA 95864

Five miles east of Midtown on Watt Avenue, the volunteers attached to this branch work a seasonal weekend format rather than a monthly table, and they split it in two. The county calendar puts the members-only session on Friday, October 2, 2026 from 2pm to 5:30pm and the closing day on Saturday, October 3 at one grocery-sized bag for $6, with the Friends signing up newcomers at the table for anyone who arrives without a card. Both windows fall inside the library's own Tuesday-to-Saturday day, so nothing changes on those dates except what is in the room.

Hours : Library hours: Tue–Sat 10am–6pm; fall sale Fri October 2 2pm–5:30pm and Sat October 3 10am–4pmWebsite
Friends of the Library sale

Sylvan Oaks Friends Book Sale

6700 Auburn Blvd, Citrus Heights, CA 95621

Out in Citrus Heights, the meeting room of this Auburn Boulevard branch is handed over to a Friends sale of donated stock, listed by the county under the same heading as its sister branches. The date the library calendar carries for 2026 is Saturday, September 5, from 11am to 3pm, which is a slot of its own and not part of any third-weekend pattern. Half Price Books is two miles southeast on Greenback Lane, close enough that a single Saturday covers both.

Hours : Library hours: Tue–Sat 10am–6pm; sale Sat September 5 11am–3pmWebsite

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

  • Work out what each buy counter actually does before the car gets loaded, since no two of them work alike. Beers gives back a quarter of shelf price in money, or a third of it in credit, books appointments two weeks out for four boxes at a time, and holds unbooked sellers to ten titles. The Freeport Boulevard shop hands over credit any day it is open but pays cash only during hours it will not put in writing, so that one starts with a phone call. Amatoria takes sellers during the month's first two weeks only, and only in a noon-to-four slot on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, paying cash below $300 of retail value and consigning everything above it. Half Price Books in Citrus Heights is the one counter here that buys in person on the day, with no window to book into.
  • The volunteer shelves set the price floor for the whole region, and they set it low. Warehouse stock at the Belvedere Avenue unit is $2 or under before the members' 30 percent comes off, and its bag sales let you fill a grocery bag for $6. Roseville's quarterly event prices a children's paperback at 50 cents and an adult paperback at $2. The Freeport Boulevard sidewalk table runs $1 a book or $5 a bag on first Saturdays, and the South Land Park branch works its own from ten until two on third Saturdays. Sorting is done by hand and by volunteer at every one of them, which is what makes the mispriced copy a feature of the system rather than an accident.
  • Both big library groups skim the good material and sell it themselves. The Sacramento group lists its higher-value books on Amazon and eBay under the Book Den name, and will hold an online order at the counter three days out, by email for an Amazon purchase and through eBay's own free-local-pickup box for the other, where you turn up with the pickup code and an ID. The Folsom group, east of the map on this page, runs an eBay store of its own for signed firsts and older collectible material. Read that as a floor and not a ceiling: what reaches a table has already been looked at once, but a hundred volunteers sorting by hand miss a great deal.
  • Two stops worth the mileage sit outside the map here. In Folsom, the Friends keep a shop in the library rotunda at 411 Stafford Street, 10am to 4pm from Tuesday to Saturday, selling donated books, DVDs, CDs, audiobooks and handmade cards. In Davis, the same kind of crew runs a three-day event in the library's Blanchard Room at 315 East 14th Street beginning the first Friday of each month, and their house rule is worth memorizing: no scanning on the Friday, scanning welcome on Saturday and Sunday, and Sunday is a fill-a-bag day at $10 a bag as often as you like. The September 2026 edition opened Friday the 4th at noon and ran to 7pm, then 10am until 5pm on the Saturday and 10am until 3pm on the Sunday, with ex-library copies at half price and a posted highlight run covering large print, vintage pocket paperback mysteries and graduate-level math.
  • Library opening times are the opening times for half this list, so anything that shuts a branch shuts a store with it. Every location in the county system starts at 1pm rather than in the morning on September 10, 2026 for a staff appreciation day, which is enough to wreck a route built around volunteer rooms. Roseville runs on its own city timetable and changes it by season: the downtown branch published a July 1 to September 11 schedule trading until eight at night, while the two park libraries stop at five or six. Check the operator on the morning you set out, never a directory.
  • One Fair Oaks address earns a telephone call rather than a drive. Trent's Bookworm at 8544 Madison Avenue calls itself a local used bookstore on its own Facebook page and NewPages carries it in the used-books column of its California directory, yet neither that page nor any directory entry shows a dated update, so try (916) 961-0542 first. For something you can plan around instead, the Read the Region collective ran its passport-and-pins crawl across three days, April 24 to 26, 2026, which ABRIDGED counted as more than a dozen shops and which is the single weekend a year when doing the whole map in one run makes sense.

Frequently asked questions

Where can I find cheap used books in Sacramento?

Start at the Belvedere Avenue warehouse, where the volunteers of the Sacramento Public Library's Friends group price everything on the warehouse side at $2 or under, give away coffee table volumes, videotapes, cassettes and magazines outright, and knock a further 30 percent off for members. The $6-a-bag events land on September 12, 2026, appointment-only for members, and the public version follows seven days on, on the 19th. Each month's opening Saturday brings $1 books and $5 bags onto the Freeport Boulevard sidewalk, and the September 2026 one ran from 10am to 3pm. Third Saturdays, the South Land Park branch puts out its own table between ten and two, and up in Roseville a child's paperback goes for 50 cents at the quarterly event.

Where do I sell used books in Sacramento?

Four counters take stock and each one works differently. Beers on R Street settles at 25 percent of shelf price paid in money and 33 percent paid in store credit, books appointments two weeks ahead for four file boxes, and takes unbooked sellers with ten titles at most. The Freeport Boulevard shop issues credit on any open day and cash only at hours you have to ask about by phone, capping you at two or three bags. Amatoria buys only across the opening half of each month, on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday afternoons from twelve until four, cash under $300 of retail and consignment above it, and the Half Price Books out in Citrus Heights makes its offer over the counter the same day, with nothing to reserve beforehand. You will net more by listing the good copies yourself, if you can tell which they are: aim BiblioScan at a whole shelf and it works across the photo spine by spine, attaching a live resale figure to each one, so you know which titles belong online and which belong in the box that goes across a counter.

When is the Friends of the Library sale in Sacramento?

No single date covers it, because the county calendar carries four. Citrus Heights takes the earliest, in the Sylvan Oaks meeting room on Saturday, September 5, 2026 from 11am to 3pm; South Land Park follows on third Saturdays, dated to the 19th of September, the 17th of October, the 21st of November and the 19th of December; and Watt Avenue splits a fall weekend between a members-only Friday afternoon on October 2 and a $6-a-bag Saturday on October 3. The warehouse operation at 8250 Belvedere Avenue keeps its own rhythm, filling grocery bags for $6 on September 12 for members with an appointment and on the 19th for anyone, then staging a teachers' day on October 4, an antiquarian one from 9am until 3pm on October 18, a members-only shredding afternoon on the 24th and a Jane Austen tea on December 13. Two more sales are suspended while their libraries are shut, at Elk Grove and Carmichael, the latter last held on May 9, 2026. Beyond the county line, Roseville's next quarterly event is Saturday, October 24, 2026 at the Downtown Library, and Davis runs one over the first weekend of every month.

Which day is best for book hunting in Sacramento?

Saturday, comfortably. Nothing else gets the Belvedere Avenue warehouse, all three Roseville rooms, the Midtown pair and the Freeport Boulevard shop open at once, nothing else lets the third-Saturday branch table or the first-Saturday clearance table happen at all, and it counts as one of the three days Amatoria will look at what you brought. Sunday is the thin day, with the Maidu and Mahany Park rooms shut, the South Land Park branch shut and Midtown opening at eleven. Monday is thinner still: Amatoria and the Davis storefront are both dark, and the 21st Street shop does not unlock until one in the afternoon.

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