A dozen or so years ago, the people behind Michigan’s largest charity used book sale looked toward the future and didn’t see much.
Their customers had taken to reading King and Kerouac on Kindle. Listening to Haley and Hawking on headsets. Squinting at Shakespeare and Shelley on smartphones.
“We really did worry that we were going away,” said Susi Schoenberger, cochair of the Bookstock Used Book & Media Sale. “With all the different digital devices, we thought, ‘We’ll get to a point where nobody wants a book.’ “
Fortunately, and blessedly, she and her teammates were incorrect.
The 22nd edition of Bookstock launches Sunday, April 26, at Laurel Park Place mall in Livonia, with sales climbing every year and more than $3 million distributed to literacy and education projects.
Through Sunday, May 3, it’ll feature more than 500,000 gently used and carefully sorted books, vinyl records, CDs, DVDs and audiobooks, starting at less than a dollar for some of the pieces in the children’s section.
As for new books, Americans bought 762.4 million of them in 2025, according to the tracking service Circana BookScan — a smaller increase over 2024 than the industry was rooting for, but a continuing reassurance that Bookstock won’t run out of merchandise anytime soon.
Measuring by James Patterson
Turning the page to full disclosure, I should note that I am not a neutral party here.
I’m the honorary chair of Bookstock, which means I lift an occasional heavy carton but am more likely to be found on radio or TV, gushing about the sale and the all-volunteer throng that makes it happen.
I was in the meeting where we talked about the potential demise of printed books. I pictured a group like ours a century earlier, working on Michigan’s very best sale of used buggy whips while Henry Ford tightened the bolts on the first Model T.
Schoenberger and a few others had a more productive vision. They now oversee the Bookstock Fund, a separate 501(c)(3) created to make sure we could still raise money for reading-centered charities even if James Patterson stopped filling racks at airport gift shops.
But he still writes, and we still help people clear shelf space for new adventures, taking in wayward books and helping them find new homes.
The very hungry public
In its peculiar and destructive way, COVID-19 helped the publishing industry. The peak year for sales was 2021, with 839.7 million copies.
After a drop-off in 2022 when everyone rediscovered the outdoors, there have been three straight years of increases, and according to Publishers Weekly, “they have settled at levels higher than before the pandemic.”
While the New York Times bestseller lists now include one for audio books and one for combined print and e-books, words on paper make up 75% of all purchases.
Oddly, Schoenberger said, Bookstock doesn’t seem to be getting clusters of identical trade paperback bestsellers the way it used to, suggesting that book clubs have gone digital. But we, and the industry, are getting by.
The top seller nationally for 2025, in case you’re curious, was Mel Robbins’ self-help “The Let Them Theory,” with 2,812,799 copies. For young adults, Suzanne Collins’ second prequel to “The Hunger Games” trilogy, “Sunrise on the Reaping,” was No. 1 at 2,000,856. The special edition of Rebecca Yarros’ romantasy, “Onyx Storm,” was best in adult fiction at 1,699,963.
Reassuringly, Eric Carle’s “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” a favorite of infants in laps since 1969, was No. 14 on the overall list, at 558,815.
It will almost certainly be available at Bookstock, though when and for how long is undetermined.
Come early and often
There’s no way to display 500,000 items at one time without displacing some of the merchants, which would be a poor way to reward Laurel Park Place for its hospitality. New mechandise is set out every day, and if that sounds like an invitation to come back often …
Yup, sure is.
Bookstock starts April 26 with an 8:15-11 a.m. presale. Admission is $25, the only time there’s an entry fee. Otherwise, the hours are 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sundays and 11 a.m.-7 p.m. otherwise.
Figure $1 for records and CDs, $2 for DVDs, computer games and most paperbacks, and $4 or $6 for hardcovers.
There’s an entire storefront devoted to notably valuable items, including specimens from a Disney collection we’re selling in pieces rather than as a whole.
Among the daily highlights:
For other specials, check BookstockMi.org. The final Sunday, for instance, everything is half price.
We’ll start collecting for the 2027 sale come fall, and we’re always delighted to see old friends again — not just you, but your books.
Bookstock
When: 11 a.m.-6 p.m., Sunday, April 26; 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday, April 27 through Saturday. $25 entry for presale 8:15-11 a.m. Sunday April 26
Where: Laurel Park Place37700 Six Mile Road, Livonia
Reach Neal Rubin at NARubin@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Bookstock used book sale returns to Livonia as print books rebound
Reporting by Neal Rubin, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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