Spokane keeps its secondhand trade in pockets, and the busiest of them is not downtown. Garland Avenue holds two shops a little over three hundred yards apart, an antiquarian room heavy on the occult and the collectible plus a rambling trade store with dollar movies, and that stretch is the one to walk rather than drive. Southeast of that pair, on Crestline in Bemiss, sits the volume operation whose quarter sales spill onto the sidewalk. The South Hill has the two-story veteran in the Lincoln Heights center, downtown adds a landmark that shelves used beside new plus a book cafe that pours beer, and the far end of the list is fourteen miles out in Cheney.
Come for credit, not for money. The three counters that publish a rate all pay it into a store account: 40 percent of the price at Page 42, a fifth of current retail at 2nd Look with half a dollar per volume clawed back when you spend it, about a fifth of the new price at Auntie's. Money changes hands in two narrow cases, since Page 42 will consider it for antique, collectible and boxed-set material plus this term's college textbooks if you write in advance, and the Garland antiquarian quotes cash or trade on its own collecting fields once you have called ahead. Everything else is a voucher, right down to the $5 slip a downtown cafe hands over in exchange for a donation.
Two things trip up a route planned off a national list. The chain most resellers aim at has nothing on this side of the state, because the chain's own Washington listing, checked on September 3, 2026, carries exactly seven Half Price Books branches, in Bellevue, Everett, Lynnwood, Olympia, Redmond, Tacoma and Tukwila, all of them west of the Cascades. And the county library district is a separate organization from the city library, with its own Friends groups and its own dates, so a search that turns up the big April sale downtown will quietly miss the two Saturday sales the district holds in November.
Used bookstoresPage 42 Bookstore
3010 N Crestline St, Spokane, WA 99207
A low-price volume floor in the Bemiss neighborhood, and the shop the Inlander's readers placed second behind Auntie's when the Best Of 2026 results ran on March 26 of that year. Its published trade terms are the plainest in this city: one bag or a box under a cubic foot per visit, about ten days to process, and up to 40 percent of the price back as store credit that never expires. Cash is possible but narrow, and the store FAQ draws the line at antiques, collectibles, complete series sets and current college textbooks, with an email asked for first. Doors open at 10am and close at 7pm, every day of the week.
Hours : Daily 10am–7pmWebsite Rare and antiquarianGiant Nerd Books
607 W Garland Ave, Spokane, WA 99205
A Garland business district storefront given over to signed, limited and first editions, occult and countercultural material, comix, taxidermy and medical specimens, in a room its own site dates to 2005. Trending Northwest singled out the rare and antiquarian side when it published its January 13, 2026 bookstore roundup, and the shop's own events board was advertising an author presentation and signing for Saturday, May 2, 2026. The buy desk pays cash or trade and makes house calls for larger collections, but it states outright that in-store buying hours vary and that nobody quotes without seeing the books, so the phone comes before the drive. Its two published grids disagree on Tuesday, since the home page reads closed that day while the contact page runs Sunday through Wednesday, so no week is printed below; both agree on noon to 6pm Sunday, Monday and Wednesday and noon to 7pm Thursday through Saturday.
Used bookstoresBooktraders
907 W Garland Ave, Spokane, WA 99205
Three blocks west along Garland from its antiquarian neighbor, rambling through several rooms of secondhand fiction, audiobooks and dollar movies. Its Facebook page, which was still posting on August 8, 2026 about emptying shelves for a refit it promised would leave the digging unchanged, bills the trade policy as one of the best around. A week earlier, on August 1, 2026, staff had bins out on the sidewalk at a quarter a book, five of them for a dollar, while a volunteer worked through the stock. Six days run to 5pm and Sunday is the short one, opening an hour later and shutting an hour earlier.
Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–5pm, Sun 11am–4pm
Used bookstores2nd Look Books
2829 E 29th Ave Ste C, Spokane, WA 99223
Up on the South Hill in the Lincoln Heights center, two floors with a reading room downstairs, founded in 1982 and owned by Betsy and Jim Ashleman since 2008. The trade sheet it wrote, which now survives only on a mirror of its old website, sets evaluations for Tuesdays and Saturdays, caps a household at twelve books, credits 20 percent of a title's current retail value and then takes 50 cents a book in handling when that credit gets spent. Read the refusals before loading the car: dirty or damaged copies, encyclopedias, magazines, dated reference and travel, dated textbooks, advance reading copies, condensed and book-club editions, and romance in hardback. Its Facebook page was posting fresh local-author stock on August 10, 2026.
Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–5pm, Sun noon–5pm
New and used under one roofAuntie's Bookstore
402 W Main Ave, Spokane, WA 99201
The Inlander's readers voted this the best bookstore in town in the Best Of 2026 results of March 26, which describe two stories of new and used inside the historic Liberty Building and roots downtown reaching back to 1978. Secondhand copies are not penned off here: the store says they sit alongside the new ones in each section, so the price sticker decides, not the spine. The used desk is the part to plan around, staffed noon to 5pm Sunday through Thursday, one bag per customer per day, store credit and never money, at roughly a fifth of a title's price when new. Anything it declines must be picked up inside three days, and the published refusals cover textbooks, ex-library copies, encyclopedias and advance reading copies.
Hours : Sun–Thu 9am–7pm, Fri–Sat 9am–9pmWebsite Permanent Friends bookstoreFriends of the Library Book Shop
Central Library, 906 W Main Ave, Spokane, WA 99201
The Friends of Spokane Public Library hold a permanent first-floor room inside Central Library, a third of a mile west of Auntie's along the same street, worked by volunteers and open weekday middays only. Their donation rules decide what lands on those shelves: used books, CDs and DVDs in good condition, with damaged material, textbooks, magazines, condensed editions, home recordings, VHS and eight-track tapes all refused, and drop-offs accepted at any open library except The Hive. Judi Young, a volunteer with the group, told KXLY in its April 22, 2026 report that the spring sale is their major fundraiser, which makes this room the year-round trickle rather than the flood. A small Friends shelf also stands at every branch on the honor system, so the cheap pull exists at more than one address.
Hours : Mon–Fri 10am–2pmWebsite Where can I find cheap used books in Spokane?
Start with the sidewalk and the library rather than the shelves. Page 42 stacks several thousand books outside at a quarter apiece on a four-to-six-week cycle once the snow has gone, posted on the Monday beforehand, and Booktraders wheels bins out at the same price, or a dollar for five of them, whenever it weeds, as it did on August 1, 2026. The city library's Friends sell from a weekday room inside Central and from a self-service shelf in each branch, and their April 2026 clear-out at Shadle Park priced everything at a dollar or under, with kids' titles at half of that. For a slower kind of cheap, Global Neighborhood on East Trent keeps a book section that a January 2026 Trending Northwest roundup picked out by name.
Where do I sell used books in Spokane?
Set your expectations at store credit. Page 42 hands back up to 40 percent on an account that never lapses, one sack or a small carton at a time, and reckon on ten days before the credit lands; it will only discuss money for antiques, collectibles, whole series and textbooks still on a syllabus, arranged in advance by email. 2nd Look sees trades on Tuesdays and Saturdays at 20 percent of the current retail value, a dozen titles per household, with a 50-cent-per-book charge the moment that credit is used. The Auntie's used desk works a noon-to-5pm window from Sunday to Thursday, one sack daily, credit only, at about a fifth of what the title sold for new. Giant Nerd is the cash exception and only for the material it collects, with buying hours that shift, so call before you go. Sort at home before any of that: one shelf photo run through BiblioScan returns a resale figure for every spine it recognizes, so the two or three titles you ought to list yourself stop traveling in the same bag as the credit fodder.
When is the Friends of the Library sale in Spokane?
Three groups hold one and none of them coordinates with the others. The Friends of the Spokane Public Library run the big one at the Shadle Park branch, 2111 West Wellesley Avenue, which fell on April 23, 24 and 25 in 2026, with a members' preview that Thursday afternoon from 3:30pm until 6:30pm and cards sold at the door at $15 for one person or $25 for a family; the next edition is already posted for April 22 through 24, 2027. KXLY put the 2026 stock above ten thousand books, DVDs and CDs at a dollar or under, closing on the Saturday with a $3 bag and a $6 box. Separately, the Spokane County Library District's groups at Cheney and at Moran Prairie each stage one on the same fall Saturday, November 7, 2026, which opens at 10am and shuts at 3pm, with cash or a check the only payment they accept.
Which day is best for book hunting in Spokane?
Split the week by what you came to do. If you are selling, Thursday is the day that lines up, with the Auntie's used desk open noon to 5pm, the Friends room at Central trading until 2pm, Giant Nerd running to 7pm and Paperbound out in Cheney staying open until 9pm. If you are buying, take Saturday: 2nd Look is on one of its two evaluation days, Auntie's runs 9am to 9pm, and every shop listed here is trading except the weekday-only Friends room. Sunday is the thin one, with Paperbound closed, the Friends room shut, Booktraders down to 11am to 4pm and Giant Nerd losing an hour off the back end, while Monday costs you Jupiter's Eye entirely.