Half Price Books

This location is my favorite of the chain because of its size and selections. I read constantly and this place has been a savior for me over the years when I’m searching for that missing volume of a character series I’m reading or looking to try out a new author I heard about.
I’ve always enjoyed the idea of selling the books back as well, and while I may not get the top price on the resale … at least someone else might get the same enjoyment from the book I did at a bargain price. No big deal though, and I’m just as happy dropping the books off at Goodwill or Salvation Army.
Great staff, always knowledgeable and willing to help.

Half Price Books is dangerous. I always come in with the expectation of buying one or two books and leave with a stack. This location is particularly nice and offers an extensive collection of books in addition to CDs, magazines, and comics. The staff has always been super friendly and happy to provide recommendations. It’s next door to Goodwill if you’re on a budget-​shopping spree.

Great store, friendly staff, excellent prices. I just went Sunday and used my 50% off coupon that they email out a few times a year, got a brand-​new looking Xbox 360 with all its components, controllers, and a game for $ 70! My girlfriend got a record player for our collection of rock and roll albums for $ 25.
They let you bring your dog and the staff (and plenty of the other customers!) is always so excited to pet my dog Beau and they even keep dog biscuits behind the buy counter.

The staff here is friendly, but not too friendly which I appreciate! There is so much to look at here you want to know that help is there if you need it, but you also don’t want your train of thought interrupted by anxious sales people. In other words, people were pretty chill here.
This is primarily a used book store (and some used music and comics as well). So they might not have everything you are looking for, but they will certainly have a couple of items you didn’t know you were looking for! Most titles are half price, with the exception of some signed books, first editions, etc. which are more than half price. There is also a nice selection of boxed stationary, journals, and other gift items that we’ve come to expect in our book stores in twenty-​first century America. (Don’t ask me why, I just observe.) And there is a very large childrens’ and young adults/​teens section. Something for everyone! And if not, check back in a couple of weeks and see what’s new.

I really enjoy their large selection of books and video and audio offerings. My rating for browsing and buying books there would be a 4 or 5, but my rating for their buy back rates for books and things is a 2. So I thought an overall 3 rating is fair. I no longer even try to sell back books there. I would rather give them to friends instead. But hey, that’s my prerogative, just as it is the stores’ to set the prices they will pay for used items. I enjoy buying books here and there really is a very large selection. You can spend many an hour just browsing through all of the books, movies and music that they offer. My guilty pleasure is crime fiction and they have tons of it for good prices. I can’t imagine a topic that they don’t have at least a fair amount of books relating to it. I love to visit and recommend visiting, just don’t expect much money on sell backs.

I entered and felt like a kid in a candy store! Love book stores… how nice is it to get them even cheaper? I’m not complaining.
Everything is organized and they have SO much. The first stall in the girl’s restroom is fun to read too.

Love this spot. Big parking lot and much bigger selection of books.
Books, records, rare books, kids, clearance, notebooks, classics, magazines; you name it, they got it.
Big enough seating area if you want to sit back and crack open a book.
Quick and friendly customer service. You can get in and out fast!
The only obnoxious piece is trying to get back onto Lamar when it’s busy out. It’s aiiight. It’s a trade off: busy traffic vs great selection of books.

I love half price books. They are really good at having popular books at cheap prices. I really love the cookbook section and nutrition books. You can always find a good deal here. The staff is super friendly about calling other stores and finding the books you need. When I was doing summer school, I always had them find my textbooks at the local stores. They were so nice about taking time to do it. Also I love selling my books here. It can always be a hit or miss, but you can just drop off your books and come back later.

This place offers discounted reads and ample hunting space if you’re not quite sure what you’re in the mood for, but you do know your budget. It’s also HUUUGE and has an admirable selection of cooking books and other media, neither of which I normally think about when heading to a bookstore. For the price and the location, it’s hard to beat Half Price Books.

This place is amazing! Most of the books for sale are used so be careful if you have allergies like me (i.e., cat dander).
However, they have a lot of other products too. I found a plethora of Doctor Who fan merchandise, including merchandise I haven’t found anywhere else!!! Not even online unless I wanted to pay an arm and a leg!
They also have some new books, still at half the price of the listing price on the book. In the back are some rare books, which I always love checking out.
Big fan, wish there were more of these around as there are none back home for me.

I love coming here on my days off. The workers are always nice, and I never leave empty handed. They have a surprising selection of comic books and movies, as well as books and trinkets. The store itself is enormous, so there’s a ton of places to curl up and take a quick look at what you’re about to buy.

If you are super poor (as I am) and have a love of literature (as I do) then Half-​Priced Books is both a wonderful and very, very dangerous place for you.
Seriously, it is like a wonderland. A wonderland full of regrets when you realize that the book that you had paid twenty bucks for, you can now own for ten. Or, oftentimes, less than that.
I lend out books often. These books never, EVER get returned. People are always rolling their eyes when I say that I like buying books. Why don’t you just go to the library, they always want to know. I don’t know! I like owning the book! Sue me! As books vanish or are destroyed over time, Half Priced Books is the perfect place to replenish (or own for the first time) your stock.
I found House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski for like eight bucks. Sure, it is a little bit tattered (as most of the books are) but I now own it for EIGHT BUCKS! At Bookpeople, the same book (but a little less tattered) would cost me almost thirty.
Thank you, Half Priced Books, for existing.

Great bookstore! I love that they’ll search for and hold a book for you so no wasted time :-)
I think I already tipped this but if you’re selling your books don’t sell here, they don’t pay much. Their collectible section is excellent though if you’re looking to buy!

This is a really nice half price that we’ve been to. The store has this older look about it which is really cool. They have a great movie selection as well as a really cool old book room. The staff is really friendly and always willing to help with whatever you are looking for.

What the heck can I say about HPB that hasn’t been said before? I’ve been a fan of this place (not just this location) since before I moved to Austin in 1994, having hit a couple of their San Antonio locations during family trips.
A few changes over the years, but all in all they’ve been good improvements. You have your cds, you have your lps, you have your dvds and your vhs tapes. You have your gift items by the registers, you have your chairs where you can sit and read for a while.
And of course, the books. The books. New books, old books, cheap books, collectibles. Most any subject you might be interested in, they’ve got you covered. The staff are generally helpful and can usually point me in the right direction if I’m searching for a particular author or subject. I’ve seen a moderate increase in prices over the years, but I understand it as a sign of the times and the new reality. Truth be told, I can find books for cheaper on Amazon, but when you factor in shipping, you come out about the same. Never mind being able to thumb through the book and seeing if it’s totally highlighted and written in.
Selling items is a toss-​up. I’ve had friends tell me it’s like hitting the lotto, but I’ve always received far less than what I expected for books and records. But I understand it’s a business, they’ve got overhead and other costs, and while I might really love my Engelbert Humperdinck record but no longer have a turntable and have it on cd anyway, HPB ain’t necessarily going to share my love and appreciation, nor will I convince them the record is worth more than $ 0.50. Nor can I be too upset if they don’t want EVERYTHING I bring in to sell.
I still have fond memories of their Guadalupe location, and I can still trace my steps in the place in my mind, hitting the same sections upon every visit over the years. This «new» location is fine but doesn’t feel as warm as the old place — ah, nostalgia!
Anyhow, I’m more than a casual fan of HPB in general, and this location does well in keeping the flame of literacy alive in Austin. Whether buying books for myself, for friends and family, or going the easy route and getting gift cards, this place is my first pick for any of my book needs.

I am a sucker for romance novels, not the Fabio variety, but the funny romance novels! I appreciate shopping here because if I had to pay full price I would be broke!
We had this store back in Ohio but, this location is huge compared to that one. It’s really organized, has a huge variety and the check out line is at lightning speed!
I know they buy back books as well but, I haven’t done that. I am sure that you only get pennies on the dollar but, that’s how they make their money and it’s good to recycle books.
I know you can read books on your phone or electronic device but, I still like to feel the pages of a book in my hand!

Extremely cheap books, extremely cheap music, extremely cheap video games, and extremely cheap movies. Really, this could be the cheapest store in the history of mankind. I love everything about their stores. They even have coupons and sales. Sometimes they’ll have certain things for clearance for just 1 dollar… and if you bring a coupon with you it’ll be even less than a dollar. I’m not even kidding.

I forgot how much I used to love going to Half Price Books: the old book smell, cheap cds, random benches in the aisles.
Recently I went back in search of cds. Prior entering Half Price Books, I had little expectation for the selection they would have/​the quality of the cds. And boy was I wrong. Not only did they have the cds I needed, but the cds were all in great condition (one of the cds was brand new and still in the packaging). At the checkout, the lady saw some of the cds I had bought and we had an awesome conversation about some of the artists.
Their book selection is endless; walking down the aisles makes me feel like I’m in the movie The Pagemaster. I saw several people sitting on the benches/​chairs just reading… something you don’t see many people doing nowadays.
The only downside of Half Price Books is their buying back program. Don’t expect to get a lot of money back, even if some of your items are new. But if you need to get rid of them, then this is a good place to start.
If you don’t know what to do on a weekend, I suggest coming to this Half Price Books for an adventure.

I love Half Price Books, but I don’t particularly love this location. Yes, it is the largest Half Price that I know of, but somehow I can never find many of the books I am looking for.
For example, the Architecture section is full of textbooks from U.T. and general compendium books about various architectural topics, none of which are particularly interesting to me. It feels like a bunch of discards. However, from other Half Price locations I have been able to find some real treasures, such as a history of Fascist architecture in Italy. These tend to be books that people keep rather than sell.
I’m not sure why, but the selection here doesn’t meet, say, their South Lamar location. Is it the location, and thereby the sellers they attract? Is it the size, which probably brings more customers? Nevertheless, I still stop by from time to time. The nature of Half Price means that a great buy is unpredictable. Maybe this location will surprise me yet.

I sat in my car listening to music for an hour in the parking lot waiting for this to open at 9am since it was determined to be the only suitable time-​waster this early in the morning without having to risk SXSW traffic and shenanigans deeper inside the city. The only other things nearby were a KFC, Whataburger, and McDonalds. Books are always a good idea so I was foaming at the mouth waiting for them to open so I could do something and see if there were any good finds like usual at HPB.
They have a pretty large selection when you walk in — you say like «whoa, lots of things» but then you actually start looking for some things and get disappointed quickly. Their audiobooks are limited to one façade of a bank of shelves, about ¼ the size of the collection at the Rockwall HPB where I always find a hidden gem. There were no hidden gems here after examining every item, most were overpriced, or just godawful nutbag Fox News peoples’ books.
My Harry Potter search was fruitless. My George R.R. Martin search went just as poorly. And then my final David Foster Wallace search turned up a really beaten up copy of Infinite Jest that was not worth $ 10, and that was just disappointing, because there are many dumb people in my life I would like to help educate more on things and only David Foster Wallace can help them out; but I would not insult these people with such a beaten up copy. It seems like whoever had been the prior owner had played football (the soccer kind if you’re ‘merican) with it after getting frustrated that there were all these pages with words on them, lots of words in fact. I have no idea why someone would want to hurt a book that badly unless they didn’t understand it, which was still disrespectful to one of the best people that has ever lived, ever.
While I didn’t walk out with anything special like a present for a friend, at least they were open at 9am and let me kill some time in the morning before going along my merry way. In a neighborhood anchored by a KFC, McDonalds, and a Whataburger they were a welcome addition to have — so while selection would be more around 1 star based on my interests, merely being open boosts them up to 3 stars.