Half Price Books

Reviews

• TJ

  Taylor Jade

  Apr 9, 2026
  5.0
  This was my first time at half priced books. I was amazed by the selection of every genre. I was asked a few times if I needed help finding anything, but I wasnt overly asked (thankfully). I did a lot of browsing and found a HUGE stack of books that should hold me over for a while. They are dog friendly and I love that!
• CK

  Conor Kennedy

  Apr 5, 2026
  5.0
  This is THE bookstore of this part of the East Bay. Prices, selection, and browsing fun. I knew this place had the best service going when i couldnt find something I saw was in stock and they tracked it down during the busiest time of the day on a weekend. Just absolute gems of human beings running the place
• DT

  Denise Tung

  Mar 29, 2026
  5.0
  Found some great gems here. Great bookstore with wide selection of different topics.
• DA

  Dean Adams

  Mar 25, 2026
  1.0
  I drove to Castro Valley because I was informed by an acquaintance that this business will pay reasonably for the vinyl records that I wanted to unload. I get there and speak with two employees regarding my bounty of items for sale. These two individuals appeared to be in their 20s, early 20s (incidently, all the employed staff at this establishment looked to be a year or three out of Highschool, which,on the face of it,doesn't bode well for worth assessment of the items I brought in (about 70 books, all nonfiction save for the H.P. Lovecraft anthology; there were also 40 or so DVDs of popular movies, tv series including Married With Children, All in the Family, ect, cable series Yellowstone, plenty of good horror flicks, some classics too like The Night of the Living Dead (the original black and white masterpiece), and 140 cd jewel cases. I didn't bring the vinyls in as too much bulk of product only reduces the value of each individual item and I wanted to fetch the premium price for the 150 records of the 60s,70s, and 80s R&B that I had. The two kids I spoke with would be the persons responsible for vetting the offered items and assessing their worth to the store. The value of each item would be assessed, I was told, by three elements: 1) product condition, 2)product sales history in the store, i.e., its popularity, and 3)how many the store already has of the item in stock. With the amount of products brought in by me, I was told it would take an hour for them to reach an offer for everything. There was a lot of stuff, to be sure; however the jewel cd cases were summarily rejected citing no public interest as the reason. I found that to he strange because the store sells CDs and has on display a couple of thousand CDs of all the popular genres like hip hop, rock, country, new age, ect; I did notice a paucity of heavy metal CDs and queried the attendant employee on it, he could only offer a shrug of the shoulders and statement that not many heavy metal CDs are brought in for store purchase. With an hour to burn in the store ( you are recommended to stay within the facility till a quote is offered) I looked around at the various attractions put on emphatic display throughout the store and thought it (the collective arrangement of books, magazines, CDs, cassettes, records,ect., ) and was left somewhat cold by its thin, almost mono-ambience and pretentiousness. For a rather large building, the available space required for expiation of unnecessary clutter was all but absent entirely, it looked as though the layout design for product placement and emphasis was delegated to a college student who was doing well in their studies of the social sciences and beginning to feel the pride of accomplishment and adoration of faculty members and fellow students alike for their remarkable ability to produce papers displaying sharp wit and vast knowledge of the opinions and ideas of their particular instructors, and wanted to, subconsciously of course, fill in the breathing spaces of inspired originality and dawning individuation with derived and unvigorous debris of the green mind.
• AF

  Adrian Flores

  Mar 14, 2026
  5.0
  Love this place. I've only been a couple times but it's refreshing to be able to find a place that sells books that don't cost an arm and a leg.

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