Bookstores in Asheville
Asheville, North Carolina has 10 bookstores on the map. That's 10 bookshops mapped around Asheville, each with its own shelves and specialties. The used sections are where the real bargains hide. Give yourself an hour minimum — bookshops are the one errand that always takes longer than planned.
This guide covers every bookstore we could verify in and around Asheville (within about 40 km), built from OpenStreetMap's community-maintained data. Names you'll run into include Malaprop's and Downtown Books & News, plus Barnes & Noble. If a bookshop's missing from Asheville's list, it probably just hasn't been mapped yet.
The Asheville bookstore lineup
10 in Asheville, plus 6 more around Asheville below:
Malaprop's
Bookstore0.2 km from Asheville
Malaprop's — Bookstore, found on 55 Haywood Street in Asheville. Also worth knowing about Malaprop's: the map lists its hours as Mo-Sa 10:00-19:00, Su 11:00-16:00; a phone number is listed — worth a call before a special trip; it has a website with more detail.
55 Haywood Street, Asheville, 28801
Hours: Mo-Sa 10:00-19:00, Su 11:00-16:00
Phone: +1-828-254-6734
Downtown Books & News
Bookstore0.3 km from Asheville
Downtown Books & News — Bookstore on 67 North Lexington Avenue. Also worth knowing about Downtown Books & News: the map lists its hours as Mo-Su 11:00-17:00; a phone number is listed — worth a call before a special trip; it has a website with more detail.
67 North Lexington Avenue, 28801-2826
Hours: Mo-Su 11:00-17:00
Phone: +18282538654
Barnes & Noble
Bookstore3.0 km from Asheville
Barnes & Noble — Bookstore.
Bagatelle Books
Bookstore3.0 km from Asheville
Bagatelle Books — Bookstore. Also worth knowing about Bagatelle Books: the map lists its hours as We-Mo 11:00-17:00.
Hours: We-Mo 11:00-17:00
Morgan's Comics
Bookstore3.5 km from Asheville
Morgan's Comics is Bookstore on 600 Haywood Road, Asheville. Morgan's Comics also notes on the map: the map lists its hours as Mo,Th 11:00-18:00; We,Sa 11:00-22:00; Tu 11:00-18:00; Fr 11:00-22:00; Su 11:00-18:00; a phone number is listed — worth a call before a special trip; it has a website with more detail.
600 Haywood Road, Asheville, 28806
Hours: Mo,Th 11:00-18:00; We,Sa 11:00-22:00; Tu 11:00-18:00; Fr 11:00-22:00; Su 11:00-18:00
Phone: +1-828-505-4003
Lifeway Christian Store
Bookstore3.8 km from Asheville
Lifeway Christian Store — Bookstore.
Firestorm Books
Bookstore4.7 km from Asheville
Firestorm Books — Bookstore, found on 1022 Haywood Road in Asheville. Also worth knowing about Firestorm Books: the map lists its hours as We-Fr 12:00-19:00; Sa 10:00-20:00; Su 10:00-18:00; it has a website with more detail.
1022 Haywood Road, Asheville
Hours: We-Fr 12:00-19:00; Sa 10:00-20:00; Su 10:00-18:00
Mr. K's Used Books and More
Bookstore5.0 km from Asheville
Mr. K's Used Books and More — Bookstore on 800 Fairview Road. Also worth knowing about Mr. K's Used Books and More: the map lists its hours as Mo-Sa 10:00-19:00; Su 12:00-18:00; it has a website with more detail.
800 Fairview Road
Hours: Mo-Sa 10:00-19:00; Su 12:00-18:00
The Bookbinder's Shop
Bookstore5.9 km from Asheville
The Bookbinder's Shop — Bookstore.
Book Warehouse
Bookstore8.7 km from Asheville
Book Warehouse — Bookstore.
What the map tells us about bookstores in Asheville
6 of the 10 list their opening hours on the map, which is genuinely useful — bookshops keep civilised hours, so the listed ones are usually reliable.
5 have websites listed. Worth a look for events — readings and signings get announced there first.
The Asheville bookstore crawl
The efficient Asheville bookstore crawl strings these together: Malaprop's on 55 Haywood Street, Downtown Books & News on 67 North Lexington Avenue, Barnes & Noble, Bagatelle Books, Morgan's Comics on 600 Haywood Road, Lifeway Christian Store, Firestorm Books on 1022 Haywood Road, and Mr. K's Used Books and More on 800 Fairview Road — 10 stops, one logical order. 2 more are listed below.
Bookstore tips for Asheville
The regulars' playbook for Asheville's bookshops:
- Learn the remainders table at Malaprop's. Publisher overstocks sold cheap. Great for gift buying — new books at used prices.
- Poetry lives in bookshops at Downtown Books & News. Poetry barely exists online as a browsing experience. The poetry shelf in a real shop is a different world.
- Magazines and journals matter. The little-magazine rack is where new writers appear first. Cheap, weird, and full of discoveries.
- Gift buying? Ask for wrapping. Many independents wrap beautifully and free. It beats a gift bag every time.
Good to know
We searched about 40 km around Asheville — that covers the town itself plus the surrounding communities you'd reasonably drive to. Listings come from OpenStreetMap, mapped by local volunteers, so a brand-new bookstore in Asheville can take a while to appear. The 10 above are only as current as the community map. A bookstore that's shut, or a new one nobody's added yet, gets fixed with a single OpenStreetMap edit.
We don't list prices — they change constantly and vary by edition. What we list is the where: real shops, verified by real mappers, in alphabetical order with no favourites.
If you run one of the 10 listed here and something's wrong — a closure, a move, new hours — the fix is the same: update the shop on OpenStreetMap and the correction flows through to this page on the next daily refresh.
Worth the trip: more bookstores around Asheville
6 more within about 40 km of Asheville, nearest first:
Barnes & Noble
Bookstore12.2 km from Asheville
Barnes & Noble — Bookstore.
Sassafras on Cherry
Bookstore21.3 km from Asheville
Sassafras on Cherry — Bookstore on 139 Cherry Street.
139 Cherry Street
Sassafras on Sutton
Bookstore21.3 km from Asheville
Sassafras on Sutton is Bookstore on 108 Sutton Avenue, Black Mountain. Sassafras on Sutton also notes on the map: the map lists its hours as Mo-Sa 10:00-18:00; Su 12:00-17:00; a phone number is listed — worth a call before a special trip; it has a website with more detail.
108 Sutton Avenue, Black Mountain, 28711
Hours: Mo-Sa 10:00-18:00; Su 12:00-17:00
Phone: +1-828-419-0677
Black Mountain
Bookstore21.5 km from Asheville
Black Mountain is Bookstore.
Mars Hill University Bookstore
Bookstore25.9 km from Asheville
Mars Hill University Bookstore is Bookstore.
The Fountainhead Book Store
Bookstore32.0 km from Asheville
The Fountainhead Book Store — Bookstore. Also worth knowing about The Fountainhead Book Store: the map lists its hours as Mo-Sa 10:00-17:30; a phone number is listed — worth a call before a special trip; it has a website with more detail.
Hours: Mo-Sa 10:00-17:30
Phone: +1-828-697-1870
Bookstore listings for Asheville: 10 in Asheville and 6 more nearby mapped from OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Photos from Wikimedia Commons contributors; individual photo credits appear in captions. Listing data was last refreshed automatically — verify hours before visiting.