Tucson's secondhand trade runs along two lines and one drive. The first line is East Speedway, where a Bookmans, a new-and-used shop and an occult specialist all sit inside a two-mile stretch, and where the first two are close enough to share a block. The second swings from Fourth Avenue out west over the Santa Cruz into the Mercado District and back up to Fort Lowell in midtown, three rooms that between them cover scholarly and out-of-print, Southwest regional, and leftist and queer publishing. The drive is Oro Valley, a town of its own thirteen miles north, where the library Friends keep two permanent shops a mile apart. Nothing on this page walks to anything else except that one block of Speedway, so build a route and take the car.
What makes the city worth working is that seven of the ten stops below will take a look at whatever you carry in, and they disagree with one another in useful ways. Two of them publish a cash rate alongside a credit rate and both pitch the credit higher: Bookmans returns each trade as a pair of figures and states in writing that credit always beats cash by a significant margin, while Nexus sets the trade side at exactly double the cash side and levels the two only on rare stock. Mostly Books pays a quarter of original retail in credit and resells at half, which hands you a published local spread to price against. Homeward Books prints a tier card instead — $2.50 back on a $5 paperback, $5 on a $10 hardcover, half the ticket either way — and applies the same rule to comics and board games. Desierto Books takes walk-in sellers through opening hours when the stack is small, and the Book Stop puts credit on account all year while confining its own buying to December through May.
Under the shops sits the county library's volunteer arm, and it decides whether a Tucson trip wants timing or can just be taken. Its Book Barn on North Country Club Road runs a members-only weekend and then a longer round open to everyone in every month bar July and August, doors 9am to 2pm, and its published guidelines for booksellers say precisely when a scanner may come out. Scanning is barred through the members-only weekends and on each public round's opening day, then permitted across the three that follow, which happen to be the markdown days as well. Four public rounds are left in 2026, the next of them opening on September 11 and the last on December 11, and the calendar already reaches June 2027. What Tucson has no branch of at all is Half Price Books: the chain's Arizona page, read on September 3, 2026, listed two stores in the whole state, one in Mesa and one in Phoenix.
Entertainment exchangeBookmans Speedway
6230 E Speedway Blvd, Tucson, AZ 85712
The Arizona chain lists five stores on its own contact page and two of them are in Tucson; this is the east-side one, sharing a block of Speedway with Mostly Books two hundred feet west. The pay rule is why you load the car: a trade comes back as two numbers, and the company writes plainly that the credit figure is always set well above the cash one, with credit that spends at any branch and never lapses. Paper is only the start of what crosses the desk — magazines, comics, discs, records, housewares, electronics, video games and musical instruments go over it too — and appointments were dropped for ordinary trades, though anyone turning up with a lot of boxes, dealing secondhand for a living or moving a whole collection or estate is asked to call the store first. Its own event listing had a Gather & Glow craft afternoon booked into this store for Sunday, September 13, 2026, from 2pm to 4pm, and a second one on the 26th.
Hours : Sun–Thu 9am–8pm, Fri and Sat 9am–9pmWebsite Entertainment exchangeBookmans River
4841 N Stone Ave #115, Tucson, AZ 85704
Up at Stone Avenue and River Road, the newer Tucson store swallowed the stock of two that shut: the company's own announcement of the opening says its Northwest and Midtown branches had closed and that as much as possible came along, and set the grand opening party for November 10, 2023. Because credit earned anywhere in the chain spends anywhere in it, a trunk of rejects from the Speedway counter is worth carrying up here before you write it off. The floor covers the whole exchange rather than books alone, and the seven-day clock — closing at 8pm on most nights and pushing to 9pm on Fridays and Saturdays — matches the Speedway store, so either one absorbs a late arrival. Its listings put a free trans, non-binary and queer poetry workshop with former Tucson Poet Laureate TC Tolbert in the store on September 19, 2026, between 11am and 1pm, with follow-ups on October 24 and November 14.
Hours : Sun–Thu 9am–8pm, Fri and Sat 9am–9pmWebsite Used bookstoresThe Book Stop
214 N 4th Ave, Tucson, AZ 85705
The shop the Arizona Daily Star calls Tucson's oldest came within weeks of vanishing: a November 2025 Instagram notice announced a permanent close on December 31 of that year, and the paper reported on February 23, 2026 that Marty Valencia called the store the day he read it and completed the purchase on February 2. He and Frank Robson, both previously at Changing Hands in Phoenix, spent February logging the stock, opened softly in March and relaunched on Independent Bookstore Day, Saturday April 25, 2026, according to Arizona Sonoran News. The Star counted some 50,000 used books wedged into 2,600 square feet, along with vintage maps, old posters and long-forgotten playbills, and the store page still prints the terms the place has always worked to: generous trade credit for books all year, and buying done judiciously from December through May. Take that second clause literally before driving over with a load in July.
Hours : Wed–Sat 11am–5pm, Sun noon–5pm; closed Mon and TueWebsite Worker-owned co-opHomeward Books Collective
2921 E Fort Lowell Rd #103, Tucson, AZ 85716
Four former Bookmans staff — Lillie Watson, Megan Downey, Zach Gotschalk and Manny Gales — opened this worker-owned co-op in January 2025 and outgrew the courtyard unit inside eighteen months; thisistucson covered the move on July 10, 2026, and the shop's own site dates the re-opening on Fort Lowell, in a room close to three times the size, to Saturday, August 15, 2026. The trade board is the most granular on this page and worth photographing on the way in: half the shelf price in credit, with pocket, older and damaged paperbacks racked at $5 for $2.50 back, poetry and small paperbacks at $6 for $3, trade paperbacks and older hardcovers at $8 for $4, and hardcovers and in-demand paperbacks at $10 for $5. Whatever the buyers grade as special — new titles, rare or vintage comics, keys and variants — gets priced individually and still pays half, while board games are taken one box per visit. The week is the catch: Tuesday is dark, Wednesday and Thursday open only between 6pm and 8pm, and the full floor is really a Friday-to-Monday proposition.
Hours : Sun, Mon, Fri and Sat 10am–6pm; Wed and Thu 6pm–8pm; closed TueWebsite Friends of the Library salesFriends Book Barn
2230 N Country Club Rd, Tucson, AZ 85716
The Friends of the Pima County Public Library, founded in 1969 on the library's own account, fund the system out of donated stock, and the stock they sell in person passes through this warehouse on North Country Club Road just south of Grant: a members-only weekend first, then four days open to all on the weekend after, in every month but July and August. Their guidelines for booksellers are the paragraph that matters most on this page — scanners banned outright at the members-only weekends, banned again on the Friday that opens a public round, then welcome for the remaining three days so long as you work at the shelf and do not camp in one aisle. Those same three days carry the markdowns: 25 percent off, then half price, then a Monday bag day that only works with the blue Friends of the Library bag. Doors run 9am to 2pm on every sale day, membership opens at $20 and is sold on the way in, and the members-only rounds falling on September 5–6 and December 5–6, 2026 run at half price throughout.
Hours : Sale days 9am–2pmWebsite Where can I find cheap used books in Tucson?
The library Friends set the floor, and they set it monthly rather than daily. Their Book Barn at 2230 N Country Club Rd opens 9am to 2pm for four public days in every month except July and August, discounting 25 percent on the second day and 50 percent on the third before finishing with a bag day you can only work with one of the Friends' own blue bags; the four still to come in 2026 open on the 11th of September, the 9th of October, the 13th of November and the 11th of December. Between sales, the two Friends shops up in Oro Valley keep ordinary weekday hours and sell what the community donates. Among the shops themselves, both Bookmans stores trade to 8pm or later on all seven days, and Mostly Books shelves everything secondhand at 50 percent of original retail by policy.
Where do I sell used books in Tucson?
Start with Bookmans or Nexus, the two counters here that name a cash figure beside a credit figure, and go in knowing both weight the credit side: Bookmans says so in writing, and Nexus doubles it, offering $5 in trade against $2.50 in cash on the same book. If you are carrying more than a few boxes, or selling as a dealer, or clearing a collection or an estate, arrange a dedicated appointment by phone rather than turning up cold. After that the terms fork: Mostly Books returns a quarter of original retail as credit against used stock only, Homeward Books pays half the shelf price on books, comics and games, Desierto Books buys selectively by edition and condition, and the Book Stop gives trade credit all year but buys from December through May. Work out the split before you drive across a city this size — photograph the whole loaded shelf, let BiblioScan turn every spine on it into a live resale price, and you will know which handful is worth listing yourself and which forty belong on a trade counter.
When is the Friends of the Library sale in Tucson?
The county Friends run theirs out of the Friends Book Barn, 2230 N Country Club Rd, in every month apart from July and August, and each month arrives in two parts. Members go first — the weekends of September 5 and 6, October 3 and 4, November 7 and 8 and December 5 and 6 in 2026, with September and December cut to half price — and the public follows over four days starting September 11, October 9, November 13 and December 11. Everything opens at 9am and shuts at 2pm, membership costs from $20 and is available on arrival, and the published calendar already runs to June 2027. Read the bookseller guidelines before you go, because they draw the line for you: no scanner at a members-only weekend, none on the first day of a public round, and no objection over the three days after it, provided you stay at the shelf and leave room for everyone else.
Which day is best for book hunting in Tucson?
Saturday, and ideally the Saturday in the middle of a community sale weekend at the Book Barn, when the sale is a quarter off and scanning is permitted. Friday works almost as well, being the only other day on which every shop here keeps full hours. The pair up in Oro Valley go dark on Sundays; Desierto Books and the Book Stop each take Monday off, the Book Stop takes Tuesday too and Homeward Books joins it that day; midweek, Homeward shrinks to a two-hour evening slot between 6pm and 8pm. Whatever day you pick, put the Speedway block last if you want a long browse, since the Bookmans there trades to 8pm on weeknights and to 9pm on Friday and Saturday.