Greater Sudbury, Ontario, is a single city stretched across Sudbury proper, Val Caron, Hanmer, Chelmsford, Lively, Garson, Copper Cliff and a scatter of lake communities, yet its secondhand books still gather near the middle. Bay Used Books on Elm Street and the Church of the Epiphany on Larch Street sit within an easy walk of each other downtown; the South End holds a library branch that has hosted several of the library's sales and, a short drive on, the Habitat ReStore on Armstrong Street, while Once Upon A Child sits out on Lasalle Boulevard in New Sudbury. Lively, Chelmsford and Garson have each hosted one of those sales since 2023. Every price here is in Canadian dollars.
It's a bilingual city, and French titles show up across this list, from the library's July 2026 children's sale in Lively to the kids' shelves on Lasalle. What the city lost in 2025 was Librairie Panache, the French-language bookshop at the Place des Arts, which had added a used section in January 2024, suspended operations on July 11, 2025, as ONFR reported that month, and The Sudbury Star reported in October that the Place des Arts had closed it.
If you're selling, Bay Used Books is where a box of adult titles goes, and it pays almost entirely in trade credit; Once Upon A Child pays cash, but only for children's books. Anything with collector value is better listed on your own, a point the FAQ below comes back to.
Used bookstoresBay Used Books
124 Elm St, Sudbury, ON P3C 1T6
On Elm Street downtown, across from the Clarion Hotel by the shop's own directions, the business Fran and Bernie Bouffard started in 1975 as a confectionery on Lasalle Boulevard, and moved onto Elm in the early 1980s, calls itself Sudbury's only used bookstore and says it holds more than half a million books over two floors covering more than 4,000 sq ft. Sudbury.com marked its 50th anniversary on August 19, 2025 by calling it Northern Ontario's largest used bookstore, and the Sudbury Star's September 8, 2025 visit found a bargain rack on the front step and the basement showers of a former boxing gym turned into shelving for books sold online. Trades are paid in store credit in more than 99 per cent of cases, from 10 cents to $5 a book and up to 40 per cent of what you paid when the shop's yellow sticker is still on the front cover, while two boxes or more need an appointment and encyclopedias, textbooks, condensed Reader's Digest books, former library copies and Harlequins over a year old are turned away. The in-store stock isn't catalogued and mostly sells for $15 or less, so phone or file a want request rather than searching the website, which lists only the collectible stock from $20 up, and keep in mind the shop's FAQ note that hours change twice a year, with later evenings in summer.
Hours: Mon–Sat 10am–6pm, Sun 10am–5pmWebsite Church book saleChurch of the Epiphany GIGANTIC Book Sale
85 Larch St, Sudbury, ON P3E 1B8
Some 600 m east-southeast of Bay Used Books, the Outreach Team of this downtown Anglican church stages what it calls its annual GIGANTIC book sale, and the parish website says the money raised goes to its local, national and international outreach projects. The 2025 edition ran January 24–26, opening with a Friday session from 3pm to 6pm before two daytime sessions, according to the parish's own announcement. For 2026 the Sudbury-Manitoulin deanery calendar listed the sale on Saturday, January 24, then a notice it posted on January 28 added a second weekend downstairs in Phoenix Hall, citing the extreme cold of the first one. The parish hadn't posted a 2027 date by September 28, 2026, though the last three editions all fell in January.
Hours: Last documented: January 30, 2026, 1pm–6pm; January 31–February 1, 10am–3pmWebsite Library book salesGreater Sudbury Public Library branch book sales
South End Library, 1991 Regent St, Sudbury, ON P3E 5V3
The library's calendar and social feeds show its book sales rotating among branches, and this South End branch on Regent Street, 4.8 km south of downtown, has hosted at least four of them: October 2023, March 2024, November 1–3, 2024 and a Giant Book Sale that ran April 29 through May 4, 2025, the last three listed with DVDs and CDs alongside the books. New Sudbury took a turn from January 31 to February 7, 2025, and the library's own posts put sales at Chelmsford in June 2024 and Garson in October 2024. The newest found, posted on the library's Instagram on July 15, 2026, was a children's sale at the Lively branch from July 25 to 31, stocked with kids' books in English and French. When the events calendar was checked on September 28, 2026, no further sale was scheduled through December.
Hours: Last documented: April 29–May 4, 2025Website Where can I find cheap used books in Greater Sudbury?
Go to the sales first: the Church of the Epiphany's January sale, and the library's rotating branch sales, which sell DVDs and CDs along with the books. Between those dates, Bay Used Books keeps most of its shelf stock at $15 or less, and Once Upon A Child was selling kids' books at 10 for $10 in April 2025.
Where do I sell used books in Greater Sudbury?
Bay Used Books takes most general titles for store credit, with appointments for two boxes or more, and Once Upon A Child buys children's books for cash. One trick before hauling boxes downtown: shoot the shelf in BiblioScan and each spine the app can match is returned with a resale price, so the keepers go online through Kijiji, eBay.ca, AbeBooks, Facebook Marketplace or Amazon.ca while the leftovers ride to Bay's counter.
Which day is best for book hunting in Greater Sudbury?
Saturday, mainly because the church sale's 2026 main day fell on one, going by the deanery calendar; the three shops keep the same Monday-to-Saturday schedules. Sundays narrow to two published schedules, Bay Used Books from 10am to 5pm and Once Upon A Child from 11am to 6pm, with the ReStore closed.
When is the big book sale in Greater Sudbury?
The Church of the Epiphany's GIGANTIC Book Sale on Larch Street, held on January 24–26 in 2025 and over the weekend of January 24 in 2026, with a cold-weather extension into early February. The library's sales move between branches, so follow its Facebook and Instagram accounts for the next one.