Santa Ana, the seat of Orange County in California, has two of the six stops below inside its own limits: a bookshop on the upper floor of MainPlace Mall on North Main Street, and an arts cooperative's storefront in a plaza on Bristol Street. The rest sit in the cities pressed up against it. Orange, three miles to the northeast, has the volunteer shop inside its public library on Chapman Avenue; Old Town Tustin, a little under three miles east, puts an independent bookstore and a fourth-Sunday flea market a short walk apart; and Costa Mesa, the outlier at almost six miles southwest, has a Friends store tucked behind its Mesa Verde branch library.
Half of this list is nonprofit. Two entries are Friends of the Library rooms stocked from donations, and LibroMobile describes itself as a hybrid nonprofit founded in 2016, so what you spend supports the libraries or the cooperative rather than a dealer's margin. Prices stretch accordingly, from fifty cents a copy on the Orange Friends' shelves to $100 for a set of Zane Grey westerns in Arvida's vintage section.
Used bookstoresBargain Book World
2800 N Main St, Santa Ana, CA 92705
Upstairs at MainPlace Mall, near the Ashley HomeStore and a little under two miles north of City Hall, this is one of two branches the business runs, the other being at The Shops at Mission Viejo. The mall's store listing, which is also where the opening times shown here come from, sums it up as gently used books at a competitive price, and the shop's Facebook feed keeps showing what is on the Santa Ana tables, from Spanish-language titles on August 31, 2026 to vintage books on September 15 and kids' Halloween reads the day after. A post of September 10, 2026 marked a Chris Dyer art book at $7.50 against its $50 cover price, and one from May 2026 put comics at $1.50 in both stores. The domain it still gives as a website, bargainbookworld.com, showed nothing but a GoDaddy placeholder in October 2026; the link below goes to the Facebook page instead.
Hours: Mon–Thu 11am–8pm, Fri–Sat 10am–9pm, Sun 11am–7pmWebsite Bookstore & arts cooperativeLibroMobile
1150 S Bristol St, Ste A3, Santa Ana, CA 92704
About 1.5 miles southwest of City Hall, in the Bristol Swap Mall plaza near the McFadden Avenue corner, the cooperative's bookstore stocks new and used books according to its Instagram profile, which was marking ten years of the project, 2016 to 2026. When the Orange County Register refreshed its guide to independent shops across Southern California on May 20, 2026, it described founder Sarah Rafael Garcia putting work from Black, Latino, Indigenous and LGBTQ communities front and center. The banner on its site and that profile agree on the newer schedule shown here, though the site's contact page still prints an older Tuesday-to-Sunday, 10-to-6 week. Expect change: on October 19, 2026 the group asked supporters to help fund Cultura Mobile, saying LibroMobile and its gallery would "transform (into something with a motor)" to reach neighborhoods, school campuses and events in 2027, and the site's banner calls Cultura Mobile the future of LibroMobile.
Hours: Tue–Fri 11am–7pm, Sat–Sun 9am–5pm; closed MonWebsite Friends bookstore in the libraryFriends of the Orange Public Library Bookstore
407 E Chapman Ave, Orange, CA 92866
In the City of Orange, three miles northeast, volunteers who have supported the Orange Public Library since 1959 staff this shop within the Chapman Avenue main library, keeping a timetable separate from the building's. Its hours page describes used fiction and nonfiction, children's and teen books arranged by age, prices between 50 cents and $1.50 except for specially priced copies, and cash, checks or cards all accepted. The Friends' Fall 2026 newsletter reported the outdoor donation bin by the east edge of the main lot working again after maintenance, and named Saturday, December 5 for a Boutique Sale of holiday gift finds in the library's Community Room. Rare and high-quality donations are set aside for the group's eBay and Amazon storefronts instead of going out on the shelves.
Hours: Mon–Tue 10am–5:30pm, Wed 10am–4pm, Thu–Fri 10am–5:30pm, Sat 11am–2pm; closed SunWebsite Used bookstoresArvida Book Co.
115 W Main St, Tustin, CA 92780
Just under three miles east, in Old Town Tustin, Arvida's website describes the business as a used book store that also carries vintage, upcycled and new titles, and its vintage-and-collectible section took on a run of older titles through July and August 2026, among them All the President's Men at $60. The Orange County Register's 2026 roundup of independent shops credited it with launching a foundation to expand literature and literacy, which the OC Book Fair's exhibitor page dates to early 2025. Book clubs fill most of the events list, which already ran into November 2026, and the spring 2026 lineup included a first-editions club. No opening hours appear on its site or its Facebook page, so call or message before making a trip of it.
Where can I find cheap used books in Santa Ana?
The lowest shelf prices on this page are at the Orange library's Friends shop, where regular copies run from 50 cents to $1.50. The same group runs a Bag of Books sale it calls semi-annual, where one flat price fills a Friends bag. Inside Santa Ana itself, Bargain Book World at MainPlace pitches its stock as gently used and priced to be competitive.
Where do I sell used books in Santa Ana?
The volunteer shops here work from donations: the Orange Friends take them through an outdoor bin by the library's main lot, and small ones at the shop counter. For a counter that pays, try the Costa Mesa Book-Off, about 5.6 miles southwest on Harbor, which the Irvine page covers. For the listing side, one photo in BiblioScan of a shelf with the spines turned outward puts a resale figure beside each title in the frame, which shows which copies justify an eBay or Amazon listing and which can go straight into the Orange bin.
Which day is best for book hunting in Santa Ana?
Saturday, because every shop that posts a regular schedule is open that day. Start in Orange, since the library shop there closes at 2pm on Saturdays, then cross to Costa Mesa, which only unlocks at 1pm, with Bargain Book World and LibroMobile open well into the evening and late afternoon in between. When a month's fourth Sunday comes around, swap in Old Town Tustin for the flea, and add Arvida after checking with the shop.
When is the Friends of the Library sale in Santa Ana?
The nearest regular ones are in Orange, where the Friends of the Orange Public Library held Bag of Books sales on April 25 and September 12, 2026, the second of them in the Community Room, and their Fall 2026 newsletter set a Boutique Sale aimed at holiday shoppers in that room for Saturday, December 5, 2026, running 10am to 2pm. In Costa Mesa, the Friends held their summer sale at the Mesa Verde branch on June 20, 2026. Santa Ana's own Friends group mentions book sales on the city's website without giving any dates.