Savannah's secondhand trade is smaller than the city's literary reputation suggests, and the downtown half of it covers roughly four hundred yards of pavement. The Book Lady has traded since 1978 and holds 6 East Liberty Street today, Books on Bay stands a quarter mile south on Abercorn, and The Stacks is two miles further out on Waters Avenue in midtown. Those three are the secondhand rooms this page found inside the squares. E. Shaver, Bookseller, which Savannah Magazine's bookstore guide files under new releases, deals in new stock, and its own history page traces the shop back to a 1975 opening and forward to the current owners without mentioning secondhand once.
Depth means leaving Chatham County, and this page says so in every listing. Sixteen miles down US-17 in Richmond Hill, seven themed rooms hold used titles, out-of-print titles and rare ones, behind a counter that buys. Fourteen miles north on Highway 21, in Rincon, one family has traded books since 1995. Eighteen miles northeast, over the state line in Bluffton, South Carolina, library volunteers hold a donated shelf in a branch lobby and have cleared their store rooms twice in each year since 2024 — four of the eight stops below are not in Savannah at all, so every listing opens by naming the town it sits in.
Two absences shape the rest. Half Price Books lists exactly two Georgia branches and both of them sit up in metro Atlanta, a state's width away, so the chain buy desk that anchors a scouting run across the Midwest is not part of the picture here. Neither is there a library sale: Live Oak Public Library keeps what gets donated for its own shelves or passes it on to community partners, which puts the Friends-of-the-Library layer that carries the cheap end in most American cities across the Savannah River instead.
Used bookstoresThe Book Lady Bookstore
6 E Liberty St, Savannah, GA 31401
The shop's own stock page counts more than 40 genres over several rooms at 6 East Liberty Street, weighted toward Georgia and Southern history, and adds a standing collection of first editions, signed copies, fine bindings and scarce titles. Anita Raskin started it in 1978, and Savannah Magazine's bookstore guide credits Joni Saxon-Giusti, who had worked the floor under her, with running it since 2002. Selling here takes planning, because the services page is specific: small lots need an appointment agreed in advance and never fall on a Saturday or Sunday, textbooks, magazines, encyclopedias and romance are refused outright, payment is your choice of cash or store credit, and anything with real collector value gets offered on consignment instead. Its calendar was still taking bookings into spring 2026, carrying a Seersucker Live evening on April 23 and a Local Author Day pinned to Flannery O'Connor's 101st birthday on March 29.
Hours : Mon and Wed–Sat 10am–5:30pm, Sun 10am–4pm; closed TueWebsite Vintage and collectible booksBooks on Bay
411 Abercorn St, Savannah, GA 31401
A quarter of a mile from the Book Lady, across from Clary's Cafe, Betsy Hoit-Thetford stocks vintage above all, and her category list is the fastest way to read the room: Dick & Jane, Gone With the Wind, Hardy Boys, Chip Hilton and Tom Swift, Nancy Drew, the Dana Girls and Cherry Ames, Schoolbooks & Readers, Scouting, Uncle Remus, Westerns and the Wizard of Oz. The name is a leftover from the old address — savannahnow reported on August 17, 2023 that the lease on the Bay Street storefront had run out after fifteen years, which is why regulars now call the Abercorn shop The Sequel. Savannah Magazine's guide puts a first edition of Gone With the Wind and volumes reaching back to the 1500s on these shelves, and the Facebook page the shop runs itself carried a post dated July 19, 2026 announcing that the bookstore's name had been registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Read the closing time loosely: the shop prints its own week as open seven days including holidays, 9am to 5(ish).
Hours : Daily 9am–5pmWebsite Used bookstoresThe Stacks Bookstore
2409 Waters Ave, Savannah, GA 31404
Two miles south of the squares on Waters Avenue, in midtown, this one has been open since 2023 and its About page settles the only question that matters to a scanner: it offers new and used books, and the FAQ adds how to tell them apart, because the secondhand copies wear fluorescent price stickers on the spine. No cash crosses the counter in the other direction here — the same FAQ says donations come in on Wednesdays and Sundays alone, two bags or boxes a visit, with textbooks, religious titles and beaten copies turned away. Timing beats browsing: the shop's own events page carried book clubs on September 6, 8 and 10, 2026 and a Pop-Up Book Bar at First City Brewing on Habersham Street on Wednesday the 16th, where $20 buys a genre off a menu and a blind-date paperback to drink with. Free parking sits on Waters directly outside, plus Maupas and 40th, though the grassy lot next door is not theirs and the FAQ asks you to keep off it.
Hours : Tue–Sat 11am–6pm, Sun 11am–4pm; closed MonWebsite Used bookstoresThe Book Store on the Hill
2481 US Highway 17, Richmond Hill, GA 31324
Sixteen miles south of the squares, in Richmond Hill, seven literary-themed rooms hold what the NewPages bookstore directory records as a secondhand inventory reaching into rare and out-of-print: children's, science fiction, history, aviation, westerns, horror, paranormal, general fiction and classic literature, with a golden retriever called Percy Jackson on door duty. Its Facebook page bills the stock in four words, new and used books, and a post there dated September 3, 2026, a Thursday, told readers to look in from 11 to 6. That matches the grid two directories print: Loc8NearMe and us-info both give an 11am opening with Tuesday and Sunday dark, and Loc8NearMe also tags the counter as one that buys used goods. Pair it with the Richmond Hill library on Ford Avenue, half a mile north, and the run covers two stops.
Hours : Mon and Wed 11am–5:30pm, Thu–Fri 11am–6pm, Sat 11am–5pm; closed Tue and SunWebsite Friends of the Library shelfFOBL Book Corner
Bluffton Branch Library, 120 Palmetto Way, Bluffton, SC 29910
Eighteen miles northeast, in Bluffton, on the South Carolina bank, the Friends of the Bluffton Library hold a permanent shelf of donated stock in the branch entrance, on the right-hand side as you come through the lobby. Their page describes gently used paperbacks, hardcovers and DVDs spread across fiction, literary classics, mysteries, nonfiction, cookbooks, gardening and self-help, calls what it charges the best deal in town, and prints the intake rules that decide what lands there: fiction and nonfiction under ten years old, with classics, coffee-table books, history, Southern authors, rare books and children's titles exempted from the age cap. No separate opening time applies, because the corner is shoppable whenever the branch is, and Beaufort County Library publishes that week as Monday to Thursday until 7pm with a 5pm finish on Friday and Saturday. The group was still posting in August 2026, which is when its next clearance went up.
Hours : Mon–Thu 9am–7pm, Fri–Sat 9am–5pm; closed SunWebsite Where can I find cheap used books in Savannah?
The floor price sits in somebody else's lobby. The cheapest shelf on this page belongs to library volunteers across the South Carolina line, whose Bluffton page rates its own prices the best deal in town. Their clearance weekends go lower still, the fall one running September 17 to 19, 2026. Inside Georgia the bargain end is the trade floor in Rincon, where the posted policy takes 40 percent off list on trade stock, and the book room at the Richmond Hill library, where the chamber put the children's shelf at 50 cents and up. Downtown you pay downtown money: everything at the Book Lady is hand-picked by the proprietor, and Books on Bay deals in collectible vintage, so neither is where a thin margin lives.
Where do I sell used books in Savannah?
One buyer, one trade counter, one shop that buys back, and one that pays nothing at all. The Book Lady takes individual books and whole estate collections for cash or store credit, but its services page sets the terms: call ahead for an appointment, expect never to get one on a Saturday or Sunday, leave the textbooks, magazines, encyclopedias and romance at home, and know that anything genuinely valuable will be offered on consignment rather than bought outright. Out of the county, Book Nook in Rincon hands back trade credit set at 30 percent of cover and spendable on half of any bill, and the Richmond Hill shop is listed as buying used goods over the counter. The Stacks takes donations on Wednesdays and Sundays and hands back nothing, which is exactly why sorting at home pays: photograph the shelf, and BiblioScan reads it spine by spine and returns a live resale figure per title, so the appointment box and the giveaway box sort themselves before you lift either one.
When is the Friends of the Library sale in Savannah?
None exists, and the county system says why on its own site. Live Oak Public Library, the system covering Chatham, Effingham and Liberty counties, states on its donation page that donated books, DVDs and audiobook CDs feed its own collection or go out to community organizations, and it names six drop-off branches without advertising a resale shop or a sale weekend anywhere on it. What the city offers in its place is privately run rooms — Liberty Street, Abercorn Street, Waters Avenue — and two volunteer operations you have to drive to. Richmond Hill's volunteers open their book room at 9607 Ford Avenue on dated sale days, the chamber listing two of them on September 6 and September 18, 2025, while Bluffton runs both the permanent corner and a September 17 to 19, 2026 clearance.
Which day is best for book hunting in Savannah?
Thursday to Saturday, and the county line is the reason. Both out-of-town rooms unlock on Thursday: Richmond Hill runs 11am to 6pm, and Rincon is open on every version of its week that anyone publishes, which is not true of Monday or Tuesday. Downtown loses Tuesday too, because the Book Lady closes, and Monday takes The Stacks out. Sunday is thin rather than empty — Books on Bay prints seven days including holidays, the Book Lady runs 10am to 4pm, The Stacks 11am to 4pm — while the Bluffton corner follows the branch and is shut.