This guide reads Victoria, British Columbia as the whole capital region, so Oak Bay, Langford and the town of Sidney at the top of the Saanich Peninsula all qualify, and any entry sitting outside the City of Victoria opens by naming its municipality; every price on the page is in Canadian dollars. Downtown gives you a walkable loop: Bastion Books off Bastion Square, Alphabet City's corner of a Pandora Avenue café in Chinatown, Russell Books on Fort Street and Sorensen Books on View Street all lie within roughly a kilometre of one another. Books & Shenanigans is a short hop south in Cook Street Village, Churchmouse Books opens inside an Oak Bay church on Saturday mornings, and Dragonfly Books means a drive west to Langford.
In 2026 both of the region's big sales fell in May: the Times Colonist filled the Victoria Curling Club with donated books over the first weekend of the month, and three weeks later the University Women of the Saanich Peninsula stocked a community hall in Sidney with recent titles. Sidney has billed itself as a Booktown since 1996, but the secondhand side of that label has thinned: the Times Colonist reported in January 2024 that Christine Tanner would close Beacon Books before February, and a September 2024 Peninsula News Review story said Galleon Books and Antiques was clearing its stock at 75 per cent off. The same paper called the Haunted Bookshop the last of Sidney's small specialty bookstores, and a Beacon charity thrift now trades a few doors along from it.
Used and new bookstoreRussell Books
100-747 Fort St, Victoria, BC V8W 3E9
Two floors and 18,000 square feet on Fort Street, where the Russell family opened a Victoria branch in 1991 before crossing the road to number 747 in 2019 with roughly a million books in tow; the shop calls itself Canada's largest independent bookstore. Its website catalogue covers the shelves, the warehouses and special orders together, so tick the box that hides special-order items when you want only copies the shop already holds, and ask to see the vintage and collectable display cases where the shop keeps its rarest books. Selling runs through an appraisal counter at street level, booked ahead online. In October 2025 the store added next-day delivery for local orders, according to a post on its own site.
Hours: Daily 9:30am–6pm
Used bookstoresBastion Books
18 Bastion Square, Victoria, BC V8W 1H9
On historic Bastion Square, a secondhand shop that describes itself as one of Victoria's few remaining used bookstores, mixing vintage and contemporary stock with armchairs and a children's nook for anyone who wants to sit and read. Its homepage announces a move to 18 Bastion Square, just around the corner from the original door, although the directions link on the same site still points to number 14. An Instagram post on August 13, 2026 showed the cleaning each book gets before it is shelved. Two opening grids circulate: the website footer gives Tuesday to Saturday, 11 to 5, while an Instagram post dated July 9, 2026 announced a return to regular hours of 11 to 5 from Monday through Saturday, so phone 250-385-8786 before planning a Monday visit.
Church charity bookshopChurchmouse Books
St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church, 1701 Elgin Rd, Oak Bay, BC V8R 5L7
In Oak Bay, 3.4 km east of downtown, volunteers turn the nave of St. Mary the Virgin into a secondhand bookshop, with coffee or tea on hand and thousands of pre-owned titles ranging from mysteries and romance to Canadiana and reference. Every book is available for a donation, and the parish says Churchmouse passed more than $30,000 to Our Place, Threshold Housing and the St. John the Divine food bank in 2025. The parish calendar lists it every Saturday, with dates already posted into January 2027, and the parish page says fresh titles arrive weekly. A larger spring charity sale ran on Saturday, March 7, 2026.
Hours: Sat 10am–1pmWebsite Antiquarian and used bookshopThe Haunted Bookshop
9807 Third St, Sidney, BC V8L 3A6
In Sidney, roughly 25 km up the Saanich Peninsula from the Inner Harbour, the shop that calls itself Vancouver Island's oldest antiquarian bookshop, established in 1947 and run by the antiquarian William Matthews, who told the Peninsula News Review in 2024 that he had bought it four years earlier. The stock stretches from recent paperbacks and out-of-print scholarship to books from the 16th century, and Matthews named sensational fiction as a specialty while pointing to a deep science fiction stock. Explore Sidney's Instagram visit of May 25, 2026 described towering shelves, vintage science fiction magazines and centuries-old volumes. The shop's ABAC member entry advertises book buying, and Matthews' bookbill.com site notes that his Fort Street shop in Victoria closed permanently in 2023.
Charity book saleTimes Colonist Book Sale
Victoria Curling Club, 1952 Quadra St, Victoria, BC V8T 4C2
The Times Colonist Literacy Society's annual sale takes over the Victoria Curling Club on Quadra Street and funds school libraries and literacy groups across Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. The 2026 edition, the 29th, drew nearly 7,500 people and raised almost $300,000 over May 2 and 3, the paper reported, with Sunday's queue reaching Pembroke Street and the children's section down in the basement. Volunteers refill the tables after the first day closes, so Sunday is still worth the trip, and on the Monday schools and non-profits collect the leftovers free. Donations arrive at the same address on a drop-off weekend two weeks before, April 18 and 19 in 2026, and outdated reference books, magazines, CDs and DVDs are unwelcome.
Hours: Last documented: May 2–3, 2026 (Sat 9am–7pm, Sun 9am–5pm)Website Where can I find cheap used books in Victoria?
Start with Churchmouse Books in Oak Bay, since every book in the St. Mary the Virgin nave goes for a donation on Saturday mornings. The two spring sales are the other route: the CFUW chapter in Sidney charged $4 to $5 a book at its May 23, 2026 sale, and the Times Colonist's annual sale at the curling club sold tens of thousands of donated copies in May 2026. Beacon's Sidney flagship lists books among its thrift stock, and its doors stay open on Sundays too.
Where do I sell used books in Victoria?
Book an appraisal slot at Russell Books, which pays mostly in credit that never expires and keeps cash for scarce or desirable copies; Books & Shenanigans in Cook Street Village gives $2 of credit a book on weekdays, up to 20 books at a time, and the Haunted Bookshop in Sidney advertises that it buys old and rare books. Anything else can become a donation, either at the Times Colonist drop-off weekend in April or by phoning the CFUW Saanich Peninsula volunteers, who want copies from roughly the last seven years. For the pile worth more than credit, a single BiblioScan photo of the shelf reads each spine it recognizes and returns a resale value per book, so you can see which copies deserve a listing of your own through AbeBooks or Amazon.ca, or locally via Kijiji and Facebook Marketplace, before the remainder goes to a counter.
When is the big book sale in Victoria?
Early May. The Times Colonist Literacy Society, which calls the sale annual, held the 2026 edition at the Victoria Curling Club on Saturday, May 2 and Sunday, May 3, with the drop-off for donations two weeks earlier; the paper counted nearly 7,500 shoppers. Three weeks later, on Saturday, May 23, 2026, the CFUW Saanich Peninsula sale filled the Mary Winspear Centre in Sidney for an afternoon. Churchmouse Books in Oak Bay adds seasonal sales of its own, including one on March 7, 2026.
Which day is best for book hunting in Victoria?
Saturday. It is the one day Churchmouse Books opens, and all the shops here that post an opening grid trade then, from Russell Books and Books & Shenanigans downtown to Dragonfly Books in Langford and Beacon's thrift in Sidney. Sunday narrows things: Sorensen Books, Dragonfly and both St. Vincent de Paul thrifts are closed, as is Bastion Books under both of its published schedules. Monday is the risky day, with Sorensen shut and Bastion's own sources disagreeing.