Category Archives: Book Sale

Birmingham, Book Sale, Bookstores, Hoover, library

Hoover Library Used-Book Store

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Here is a quick photo tour of the Friends of the Hoover Library Used-Book Store. It’s located on The Plaza back near the magazines and snack bar and there is another “secret” room downstairs that has $1 books!

Hoover Library Bookstore Dollar Books

They keep carts outside the shop with $1 books. Its always worth looking through as 90% are hardbacks and many are donated (a.k.a. books without library markings/stickers). They have a nice easy to understand pricing system once inside.

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Now the Library Used-Book Store keeps an overflow room of used books downstairs along the wall of the community room. All of these books in the “Book Nook” are $1. The turnover here isn’t as high as upstairs so I don’t check on this every visit. But I have found some gems there. So do check often.

To get to the room, go back out to the main library hallway and follow it around towards the non-fiction sections. As you are approaching the “quiet study cubicles” there will be a stairway on the right. Take this downstairs. Once downstairs take a left and you’ll see the room.

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Birmingham, Book Sale, Bookstores, Events

Birmingham Library Used-Book Sale

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Today kicks off the Summer Reading Book Sale at the library bookstore at the Birmingham Central Branch. The sale, which runs through June 10th, knocks another 25% off books priced at $2 or less (which is much of their stock). You can get more details over on the blog post that the library put up. According to that post the shop will be open until 5:30p every day.

The book store is located on the 2nd floor, to the left of the escalators, as you come up. Here’s a quick photo tour of the Friends Bookstore from earlier this year too. Though it’s worth mentioning that the stock has increased a good bit since these photos were taken.

Hope you get the chance to swing by and find something good!

Birmingham, Book Collecting, Book Sale, Bookstores, library

Homewood Library Used-Book Store

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Here is a quick photo tour of the used-book store that is maintained by the Homewood Library’s Friends of the Library Group. It’s located downstairs at the Homewood Library and is open:

  • Monday-Friday 10:00 a.m.-4 p.m.
  • Saturday 10:00 a.m.-2 p.m.

 

This is by far the best library bookstore to visit if you are looking for magazines. They have shelves and shelves of magazines that I’ve never heard of, plus all of the big popular ones. If magazines and journals are your thing – THIS is the shop you have to visit. Magazines cost ten cents each.

The whole used-bookstore is pretty big, divided among three rooms, with a so-so turnover in the Fiction shelves. Most everything is discarded library books. Though finding donated copies (with no library stickers or stamps) isn’t uncommon. I have seen First Edition books priced at $5 and they do keep a 50 cent table, which is always worth glancing through when you’re at the library.

The first thing to do when you arrive is look down just inside the door. There is a cardboard box there with Free Stuff in it. It’s usually just magazines, maps, photos, etc. but you may find something there. Also, in the magazine room, there is another bookshelf unit and another box with free books and magazines for the taking.

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Birmingham, Book Sale, Bookstores, library

Vestavia Hills Library Used-Book Store

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Here is a quick photo tour of the Vestavia Hills Friends of the Library used-book store. The Vestavia Hills Library has a new building and with it comes a new bookstore space. While this shop is about a third of the size of the original used-book store, the quality of books found is always high and the volunteers manning the desk are always up for a friendly chat.

One of the main reasons I really like this store is that it has a very high concentration of donated hardcovers. And they are all still $3! That means no library stickers to peel off, stamps, etc. I once found a signed first-edition (with verification crd from the Alabama Booksmith) of Brooks’ The People of the Book and all I had to fork over was $3. That’s the kind of thing that makes digging through bookstores so much fun.

Once you enter the library, the bookstore will be to your left. It’s worth stopping in to see if any other signed gems have slipped through the cracks and made it to the shelves. Their hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday. They are closed Saturday and open on Sundays 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.