Almost all the secondhand trade here sits on one street. Kansas Avenue runs south to north through Topeka, and it holds Dean's Books at number 1426 on the downtown stretch and Round Table Bookstore at 826 on the north side, two miles apart with the Kansas River between them. The third anchor sits off that line, inside the city's central library on 10th Avenue just west of Dean's, which holds both a permanent Friends shop and the auditorium where the same volunteers run their quarterly sale. Everything after that means a car, out to a plaza on the far west side of town.
Work out where a box of books can actually go before you fill one, because only one address in this guide pays for stock. Dean's takes trades across the counter as a matter of course. The library shop and the auditorium sale both live on patron donations, handed over either at the shop counter inside or at a barn behind the building. God's Storehouse accepts books, magazines, discs and CDs, but only at its west store, which means a cross-town trip if you happen to be on the east side. Prices bottom out at the quarterly sale: $2 for hardbacks, four children's titles for a dollar, and, on the Sunday, ten dollars for as much as a sack will take.
A stale Topeka roundup misleads in three specific ways. Half Price Books runs nothing inside the city limits — its Kansas addresses are Overland Park, Olathe and Wichita, and its own store finder puts Olathe nearest at roughly fifty miles by the coordinates it hands back. Vintage Stock on Southwest Wanamaker Road reads like a books stop in aggregator listings, yet the chain's own listing for this branch covers movies, music, posters, video games, toys and trading cards, and its FAQ names Joplin, the V-Stock branches in St. Louis and most EntertainMART locations as the places that buy books. And the newest bookshop in town is not a secondhand one: Ivy and Ink on Southwest Gage Boulevard, which KSNT covered on February 17, 2026 after a soft opening that month, sells new romantasy.
Used bookstoresDean's Books
1426 S Kansas Ave, Topeka, KS 66612
Downtown on the southern stretch of Kansas Avenue, roughly half a mile below the city center; the shop's Facebook profile dates its downtown Topeka trading to 1973. Buying is visibly part of the daily routine: a run of Terry Goodkind fantasy appeared on that page dated August 22, 2026, captioned as traded in that day, and an August 4, 2026 post has the owner buying a title he had never heard of within the hour after a customer asked for it. Prices get published the same way — a box of National Lampoon landed on August 25, 2026 at $2.95 each or three for $8 for the 1980s issues, $3.95 or three for $10 for 1970s and specials. Teachers get half off any books bought for a classroom, an offer the shop restated on August 13, 2026.
Hours : Mon–Fri 10am–5:30pm, Sat 10am–5pm; closed SunWebsite Used bookstoresRound Table Bookstore
826 N Kansas Ave, Topeka, KS 66608
Two miles up the same avenue and over the river, in the NOTO Arts District, run by a family the About page names as Andrew Howard, Scott Howard, Rain Schultz-Pruner and Donna Schultz. The store splits its floor three ways — new titles, what it calls a large and constantly changing selection of used books, and a separate Upstairs Bargain Book Room of discounted stock priced flat at $2.50 a paperback and $5.00 a hardback. Its own Facebook event sets a Turn the Page sale for September 8 to 13, 2026, taking 40 percent off every used book and half off the bargain room. A coffee bar and a short drinks list sit alongside the shelves, so the browse tends to stretch.
Hours : Tue–Fri noon–8pm, Sat–Sun 10am–4pm; closed MonWebsite Friends of the Library bookstoreChandler Booktique
1515 SW 10th Ave, Topeka, KS 66604
A donation-stocked shop run by the library's volunteer Friends inside the main library building on Southwest 10th Avenue, a mile and a quarter west of downtown, mixing secondhand books, magazines, movies and music with a rack of new gift items. The library's events calendar carries a Chandler Booktique Half Price Book Day on the fifteenth of each month through 2026 — September 15, October 15 and December 15 among them, moved to November 16 that month — running 10am to 5pm and cutting every book in the shop, not the gifts, to half price. The name honors Anderson Chandler, the Fidelity Bank and Trust chairman the library says died in 2019, and takings go straight back into library programs. Cards and cash both work at the register; a few books to give away go to that same register, a carload to the book barn in the dock drive off Garfield.
Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–5pm; closed SunWebsite Library book salesFriends of the Library Book & Media Sale
Marvin Auditorium, Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, 1515 SW 10th Ave, Topeka, KS 66604
Four times a year those same volunteers empty their storage into Marvin Auditorium, and the schedule the Friends published on the library site for 2026 runs January 16 to 18, then April 17 to 19, July 17 to 19 and October 16 to 18. Friday evening is members-only, with membership sold on the spot at $20 solo or from $30 for a household; Saturday is free to walk into; Sunday is bag day, one supplied grocery sack filled for $10. Hardbacks and most paperbacks go at $2, records, DVDs, audiobooks and sheet music at $1, CDs at fifty cents, small paperbacks marked two to the dollar, and children's titles four to the dollar. A specialty table of individually priced collectibles, rare finds, games and puzzles sits apart from the general run.
Hours : Fri 5pm–8pm members only, Sat 9am–3pm, Sun noon–3pm bag dayWebsite Where can I find cheap used books in Topeka?
Start with the library. The Friends charge $2 for a hardback or most paperbacks at their Marvin Auditorium sale, fifty cents a CD, a dollar apiece for record albums, DVDs, audiobooks and sheet music, a pair of marked small paperbacks for the same dollar and four kids' books for another, and close each weekend by selling a filled grocery sack for $10 on the Sunday afternoon. Between those weekends, the Chandler Booktique goes to half price on every book it holds once a month: the fifteenth on the library's calendar, the sixteenth in November. If neither date suits, the God's Storehouse thrift store on Chelsea Drive puts donated books out with the rest of the household goods, and Round Table discounts its used shelves off cover price whenever the shop is open.
Where do I sell used books in Topeka?
Dean's on South Kansas Avenue is the trading counter here, and its own feed makes that plain: copies bought over the counter were photographed for the shelf on August 22, 2026 under a note that they had been traded in that day, and a post on August 4, 2026 describes a title being acquired an hour after a customer asked whether the shop had it. Nothing else in town works that way. The Friends take donations, a few volumes at the counter, a trunk-load at the drive-in barn on the Garfield side, and the Kloos ministry receives at its Fairlawn Plaza store only, weekdays to 7pm on the website but to 6pm in a January 19, 2026 store notice, and Saturday until 4pm. Skip the guesswork at home: photograph one shelf spine-out, and BiblioScan puts a market value against each title it manages to read, so you can split the copies that justify listing yourself from whatever ends up in a trade carton or a donation bin.
When is the Friends of the Library sale in Topeka?
Four weekends a year, always Friday through Sunday, in Marvin Auditorium inside the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library at 1515 SW 10th Ave. The dates the group published for 2026 are January 16-18, April 17-19, July 17-19 and October 16-18. Friday from 5 to 8 in the evening is reserved for members, who can buy in at the door for $20 individually or from $30 for a family; Saturday runs 9am to 3pm with free admission; Sunday, noon to 3pm, is bag time: one supplied sack for $10. Every edition also puts out a table of separately priced collectibles, oddities, games and puzzles, which is where material worth listing tends to sit. Between those weekends the Booktique inside the same building keeps a smaller version of the same stock on sale all week.
Which day is best for book hunting in Topeka?
Saturday wins here, and not narrowly. Four of the five entries trade on every Saturday they publish hours for, and the fifth, the auditorium sale, only ever falls on one; that lets you take Kansas Avenue first, then the library, then drive west to the thrift store. Sunday collapses the list to a single shop, Round Table from 10am to 4pm, because Dean's and the Booktique both close and the thrift store lists no Sunday hours. Monday is the other one to avoid, with the NOTO shop dark. Weekdays reward a different plan: Dean's holds its doors open until 5:30pm, Round Table stays open until 8pm from Tuesday to Friday, and the fifteenth of the month is worth building a trip around whichever weekday it lands on.