Where to buy used books in Salt Lake City

Updated 9/2/2026

Downtown Salt Lake City puts two of its heavyweights within sight of each other. Ken Sanders Rare Books holds three floors on Library Square, inside the building that until recently housed the Leonardo museum, and Utah Book & Magazine has been piling stock up at 327 South Main for decades. After that the trail runs southeast through Trolley Square into Sugar House, and then it crosses out of the city altogether. Bountiful, Millcreek, South Salt Lake and Sandy each keep a city hall of their own; five of the twelve entries further down stand in one of those four towns, and every one of the five opens by naming it.

Plan around who actually buys, because the terms here sit further apart than the shopfronts suggest. Ken Sanders publishes a rejection list before it publishes anything about price, and asks sellers to email photographs rather than carry boxes through the door. Weller Book Works takes no walk-in sellers at all — everything runs by appointment, and small or common lots come back as store credit. Then Central Book Exchange turns trade-ins into points and stated outright, in a FAQ last archived November 3, 2025, that it is not offering cash. The Book Garden pays in trade credit that is good in Bountiful and nowhere else. None of the four publishes a flat cash percentage, so come expecting credit and treat any money as the exception.

Three changes catch out the older guides. Ken Sanders is no longer at 268 South 200 East, the address half the directories still carry, and the museum it moved into shut permanently on September 25, 2025, leaving the bookshop as the tenant the city has said it wants to keep. Eborn Books has had no downtown store since the 2019 evictions; what remains on the Wasatch Front are independently owned franchises, the nearest of them inside a Sandy mall. And two shops on this page have lost the obvious web address: utahbookmagazine.com now sells textbook test banks, while thebookgarden.org has lapsed and been picked up by a domain parker. Neither one is the store, and neither is linked here.

Spot map

The best spots

Used bookstores

Ken Sanders Rare Books

209 E 500 S, Salt Lake City, UT 84111

Three floors of stock in the old Leonardo museum building on Library Square, and the shop's own homepage sets out what fills them: an enormous and eclectic run of affordable used titles, a few new books, a rare room, and a rolling supply of art, ephemera, maps, photographs and postcards. Axios Salt Lake City and KSL both reported the museum's permanent closure on September 25, 2025, and Fox 13 put the question to the bookseller the same day — he answered that he has 100,000 books in the place and is not moving again, while the city said in a statement it is working to keep the bookstore in its existing space. Read the published buying policy before you load a car: well over 90% of what gets offered is turned down, and the refusals are itemized — nothing ex-library, nothing with a board falling off, no textbooks or auto manuals, no old law books, no Reader's Digest or Time-Life, no dictionaries or encyclopedias later than 1850, no National Geographic after 1920. Sellers are asked to email photographs of covers and copyright pages rather than drop books at the counter, and the events page was still booking an author afternoon for September 5, 2026 when checked.

Hours : Tue–Sun 10am–6pmWebsite

Used bookstores

Weller Book Works

607 Trolley Square, Salt Lake City, UT 84102

Two floors just inside the 600 South entrance to Trolley Square, with the rare book room upstairs, entrances on both mall levels and free parking in every Trolley Square lot. The store history page traces the business to 1929, when Gustav Weller turned a secondhand furniture shop into Zion's Bookstore after buying a collection of used Mormon books; the secondhand inventory is not searchable on the shop's own site and lives on Biblio.com instead, and Tony Weller, an ABAA and ILAB member, handles appraisals separately from purchases. Selling is appointment only — call and ask for a Used Book Buyer, who will want the material described in bags, boxes and bookcases rather than counted — with in-store credit for small collections and common or slow-moving titles, and cash offers made case by case on large or high-value lots. One wrinkle worth knowing: the hours page and a homepage banner uploaded on August 31, 2026 both close it at 9pm from Monday to Saturday, while a footer link still shows 8pm early in the week, so only the Friday and Saturday evenings are safe to bank on.

Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–9pm, Sun noon–5pmWebsite

Used bookstores

Central Book Exchange

2017 S 1100 E, Salt Lake City, UT 84106

A straight secondhand shop in Sugar House, founded in 1968, holding more than 40,000 books and parking customers in the Sterling Furniture lot next door. Prices run at up to half of what the big retail sites charge for the same title new, and points earned on trade-ins come off most of the inventory on top of that. The FAQ is unambiguous about the terms: points are scaled to how many books you bring and to their quality and popularity, cash is not on offer, and anything over three boxes needs a phone call so a staff member can be scheduled to take the haul in; ten visits on a store account earn a reward you choose between points, a gift card and a discount. The about page that carries the 1968 date and the grid below was last archived on November 3, 2025.

Hours : Mon–Fri 10am–7pm, Sat 10am–5:30pm, Sun noon–5pmWebsite

Permanent Friends store

The Library Store

Main Library, 210 E 400 S, Salt Lake City, UT 84111

The Friends of The City Library own and run a permanent shop in the Urban Room of the Main Library, across Library Square from Ken Sanders, and stock it year-round out of the same donation pile that feeds their sales. Takings all return to the library, and the Friends skim their most pristine and noteworthy material off to an Amazon storefront, which tells you where the ceiling sits: this is a place for volume at low prices, not for the one scarce copy. The short weekday afternoons and the longer Friday and Saturday openings make it the easiest thing on this page to bolt onto a downtown loop. The library's own page carried the schedule below when read in September 2026.

Hours : Mon–Thu 1–5pm, Fri–Sat 10am–5pmWebsite

All spots by type

Used bookstores

Utah Book & Magazine

327 S Main St, Salt Lake City, UT 84111

Peter Marshall has been at this Main Street address long enough that KUTV, filming inside in February 2025, counted 39 years and reported the nickname the block gave him, the Governor of Main Street. The Salt Lake Tribune went inside in August 2025, days after a fire destroyed a restaurant and three bars next door and left the bookstore untouched, describing the interior as a maze of books, dust and history and quoting the owner on how fast those towering piles would have gone up. What you get is cheap used stock in quantity rather than a curated front table, which is exactly why it rewards a scanner. Two warnings: the shop posts no opening times anywhere, and utahbookmagazine.com is not the store — that domain now runs a textbook and test-bank operation, so there is no link here.

Used bookstores

Marissa's Books & Gifts

3302 S 900 E, Millcreek, UT 84106

Over the line in Millcreek, at the corner of 3300 South and 900 East, a shop that shelves new, used and vintage side by side and prices the secondhand at a fraction of the original list — the shop puts Millcreek, not Salt Lake City, on its own contact line, so set the map app accordingly. It was founded in 2013 as an online seller and grew a storefront around that, keeping a standing line to educators, librarians and homeschooling parents. For anyone scanning, this is the most mixed floor on the page: heavily discounted new stock and current bestsellers sit alongside gently used copies, so read the sticker before you read the spine. The homepage, still carrying the seven-day grid below, sits in the Wayback Machine with a May 16, 2026 timestamp.

Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–7pm, Sun 11am–5pmWebsite

LDS and Mormon specialist

Benchmark Books

3269 S Main St, Suite 250, Salt Lake City, UT 84115

Out in South Salt Lake — the postal address still reads Salt Lake City, the city limits do not — up on the second floor at 3269 South Main: an independent shop specializing in LDS and Mormon books, new, used, out-of-print and rare, plus documents, photographs and artifacts, a small Utah and Western Americana section, general religion titles, and sale tables of reduced new stock. Curt Bench opened it in 1987 after fourteen years at Deseret Book, where he had started the rare book department and then watched the company close it; he died in 2021, and his son Chris runs the shop now with Bryan Buchanan, a long-time employee. If scarce Mormon history sits on your buy list, this is the address to try before the general shops, and the five-day office week is the catch — it is shut both weekend days. Its homepage carries a Wayback Machine snapshot dated August 6, 2026.

Hours : Mon–Fri 10am–6pm; closed Sat–SunWebsite

Used bookstores

The Book Garden

2 N Main St, Bountiful, UT 84010

North of the county line in Bountiful, at the very center of downtown, a family-run shop whose own store site describes more than 4,000 square feet of books sorted, stacked and towered inside an innocent-looking storefront, with further inventory held off site and fetched on request. In-store trade credit is the currency, and the policies page states plainly that it cannot be spent online or at 3 Goats Gruff, the sister shop up in Brigham City. The Instagram account the two share posted on May 20, 2026 inviting everyone to 2 North Main for a twenty-fifth anniversary celebration over June 25 to 27, with sales and giveaways. Mind the domain trap: thebookgarden.org has expired into a parking page, and the working catalog and contact details sit at the address below.

Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–6pm, Wed–Thu to 7pmWebsite

Used bookstores

The Printed Garden

9445 S Union Square, Suite A, Sandy, UT 84070

South in Sandy, in the Historic Union Square plaza, a traditional brick-and-mortar shop that lists most of its sections on AbeBooks and pours free coffee, tea or hot peppermint cocoa for anyone browsing. Its about page describes a comparatively new store built on more than twenty-five years of work in the book trade, and the AbeBooks storefront it has kept since January 6, 2016 is where the shelves are indexed. The events board was carrying a book signing on Saturday, September 19, 2026 with a Salt Lake horror novelist and his publisher, and a Moon in the Rye poetry night on Friday, October 2, 2026. It closes Sunday and Monday, which puts it out of step with the rest of the valley.

Hours : Tue–Sat 10am–6pm; closed Sun–MonWebsite

Used bookstores

Eborn Books & Gifts (South Towne)

10450 S State St, Suite 2328, Sandy, UT 84070

Down in Sandy, one floor beneath the main concourse in the south wing of The Shops at South Town, where the mall directory was still listing the store on September 2, 2026 and describing a retailer of over 500,000 volumes, new and secondhand, rare and long out of print. Untangle the name before you drive: the downtown Salt Lake City store, once around 40,000 square feet across three levels, was evicted in 2019 and never reopened, and the company's own locations page now shows a Tooele warehouse with no open hours, a store in Nauvoo, Illinois, and independently owned franchises in Provo, Ogden and Layton, each with its own stock. This branch trades under eborngifts.com, which has served a placeholder saying a new website is coming since January 2026. No two sources agree on when it opens, so the field is blank below; ring ahead rather than gambling on the drive south.

Website

Library book sales

Friends of the Library sale

Friends of The City Library Used Book Sale

Main Library, 210 E 400 S, Salt Lake City, UT 84111

When the Friends empty their stacks they do it in the Main Library's book sale room, one floor down on L1, reached through the Lower Urban Room. The 2026 spring edition ran Friday March 6 and Saturday March 7 from 10am to 6pm, open to everyone, with the organizers stating that most items were under $3 and listing paperbacks, hardcovers, classics, coffee-table books, children's titles, CDs, DVDs and vinyl records. Members get separate earlier sessions — January, February, March and June all had one on the 2026 calendar — which is the argument for signing up in advance instead of at the door. Editions are published one at a time rather than on a fixed rhythm, so check the Friends calendar instead of assuming the same weekend next year.

Hours : March 6–7, 2026, 10am–6pmWebsite

Friends of the Library branch sale

Sprague Branch Book Sale

Sprague Library, 2131 S 1100 E, Salt Lake City, UT 84106

The Friends also take tables out to the branches, and Sugar House draws the evening slot: the Sprague sale ran from 6pm to 8pm on August 13, 2026, open to everyone, gently used books plus library-themed merchandise, with the takings going back into library programs. The rest of that 2026 run hit Day-Riverside on June 5 and Chapman on June 13 in the afternoon, then Marmalade, Anderson-Foothill on August 1 and Glendale on August 8, both of those from 10am to 1pm. Branch tables are a diversion, not a day out — a stack, not a roomful — but Sprague sits close enough to Central Book Exchange to make the detour pay for itself.

Hours : August 13, 2026, 6–8pmWebsite

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

Four counters take stock in this valley, and each of them runs on a different rule. Ken Sanders wants an email carrying photographs of the covers and the copyright pages before anything moves, and turns away well over 90% of what it is shown; the itemized list of what it will not touch sits on its own policy page and repays a read before any box gets sorted. Weller Book Works is appointment only: ring the shop, ask for whoever is buying used that week, then describe what you have by the bag, the box or the bookcase instead of counting titles, and expect in-store credit unless the collection is large or genuinely valuable. Central Book Exchange scales its points to quantity, quality and popularity, and needs a call before you turn up with more than three boxes. The Book Garden settles in trade credit that stops at the Bountiful door.
The Friends of The City Library run the only dependable sale calendar in town, and it has two speeds. The big public sale takes over the sale room beneath the Main Library lobby: the 2026 dates were March 6 and 7, with almost nothing priced above $3. Between those, tables go out to the branches on their own dates through the summer, one library at a time. Members are let in first, at sessions of their own, which is why a membership pays for itself when it is bought ahead of a big sale rather than after one.
Sunday and Monday are the two to check twice. The Printed Garden down in Sandy is shut on both of them. Benchmark Books works an office week, Monday to Friday, and goes dark for the entire weekend, so anyone hunting scarce Mormon history has to build a weekday trip around it. Ken Sanders opens Tuesday through Sunday, which makes Monday its own day off, while the Friends' shop in the Urban Room gives you four afternoon hours on a Monday and nothing whatsoever on a Sunday.
State Street and Main Street are the spine, and the valley is longer than a map suggests. Bountiful sits north, over the Davis County line, while the suburban stops run down the valley from Millcreek through South Salt Lake to Sandy, and the last pair — the Printed Garden in Union Square, Eborn at South Town — are far enough down to be their own afternoon rather than a stop on someone else's. Downtown is the part you can walk: Ken Sanders and the Library Store share Library Square, and Utah Book & Magazine sits a few blocks west on Main. Weller Book Works is a short walk from the Trolley Square TRAX stop, and parking anywhere in the complex costs nothing, which makes it the sensible place to start a driving day.
A few names in older roundups will swallow an afternoon for nothing. The Eborn store downtown, once roughly 40,000 square feet on three levels, has been gone since 2019, and the company now sells mostly online out of a Tooele warehouse that keeps no open hours. Tschanz Rare Books is a real ABAA and ILAB house on 2100 East, specializing in Utah and the Mormons, the Interior West, western national parks and railroads, but its gallery opens by appointment — a phone call, not a browse. The Recommend, in Studio 37 of the Historic Baldwin Radio Factory in Millcreek since its grand opening on February 14, 2026, sells curated new books alongside handmade pottery and jewelry rather than secondhand stock. And the regional antiquarian fair run by the association Tschanz belongs to, the Rocky Mountain Book & Paper Fair, happens in Loveland, Colorado, not Utah; the 2026 edition ran August 14 and 15.

Frequently asked questions

Where can I find cheap used books in Salt Lake City?

The Friends of The City Library, not the shops, set the price floor here. Their public sale at the Main Library kept nearly everything below $3 in March 2026, and the branch tables that ran through the summer sold from the same donated stock; the Library Store in the Urban Room works that pile year-round, Monday afternoons through Saturday. Among the shops that keep regular hours, Central Book Exchange in Sugar House is the cheapest predictable floor — secondhand marked down as far as half the price the big sites want for the same title new, with trade-in points coming off most of the rest — and Marissa's in Millcreek discounts hard across both its new and its gently used shelves. Utah Book & Magazine downtown is the wild card: no published hours, no usable website, and piles of cheap stock that nobody has curated for you.

Where do I sell used books in Salt Lake City?

Four counters, and credit is the default answer. Ken Sanders is where actual money changes hands, but it wants rare books, photographs, maps, prints and ephemera, turns down well over nine books in ten it is shown, and asks for emailed photographs before anything is carried in. Weller Book Works buys by appointment and keeps cash offers for large or high-value collections, settling everything smaller in store credit. Central Book Exchange pays in points only, and the Book Garden in Bountiful pays in trade credit spendable at that one shop. Triage before the car leaves the driveway: a shelf photographed and run through BiblioScan comes back with a live resale figure beside each spine, and that split — the few you ought to be selling yourself, the mass that will only ever be credit at a counter — is the whole job.

Which day is best for book hunting in Salt Lake City?

Saturday, by a wide margin. That is the single date in the week when the Library Store, Weller Book Works, Central Book Exchange, Marissa's, the Book Garden and the Printed Garden all trade together, with Weller open until 9pm and the Friends' shop until 5pm. Friday does nearly as well and adds Benchmark Books, which works a Monday-to-Friday week and shuts for the whole weekend — if LDS and Mormon material is on your buy list, that single fact pins your trip. Sunday keeps Weller, Central Book Exchange, Marissa's and Ken Sanders and closes the rest; Monday finds Ken Sanders and the Printed Garden both dark, so spend it at home listing instead.

When is the Friends of the Library sale in Salt Lake City?

The Friends of The Salt Lake City Public Library hold it in the sale room on the lowest floor of the Main Library, and they publish each edition individually rather than committing to a rhythm. The most recent public edition opened at 10am on March 6, 2026 and closed at 6pm the following evening, open to everyone, with the Friends putting most of the stock below $3. Membership buys an earlier slot, and four such sessions appeared on the 2026 schedule. Between the big sales the branches take a turn — Day-Riverside, Chapman, Marmalade, Anderson-Foothill, Glendale and Sprague all had a 2026 date — so the Friends events calendar, not last year's dates, is what to check.

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