Tim's Used Books

This is a very crowded store, but has a lot of great selections! And very affordable price on all the books! They also have postcards, one dollar each! You need to walk all the way down for the entrance.

The was a quirky little used book store that my girlfriend was very excited to find. She ended up buying 5 books, a couple that she was interested in but didn’t want to pay full price for and a couple unexpected ones. The entrance was super interesting as you had to go down a vegetated walkway to an old house set back from the main road. The place did have books EVERYWHERE but they were organized by section and it was expected in an old used bookstore. Was surprised to see they took debit/credit cards.

Awesome little store with so much charm. I believe this store will have just what you are looking for. And so much charm. I could have spent all day in this place.

I never come to Provincetown without stopping by Tim’s Used Books. There’s a great selection, and a lot more here than you’d expect. The staff is super friendly and helpful, and prices fair. Caution: you can easily spend hours browsing here. =) #ShopLocal

loved this book store - so cute to visit, and a great selection of well-priced books to add to my collection (specifically, Nancy Drew!)

Tim’s Used Books is a wonderful place to spend a few hours pursuing Tim’s wonderful selection of books on every subject at extraordinary low prices!

Incredible curation, from math to Nancy Drew. The proprietor has some very interesting life experience too. Must visit for every P-Town trip.

Exactly what you would expect a Provincetown used book store to be. Narrow passageways abounding with tall bookshelves and plenty of titles to choose from. Masks are required in August 2021 and only 6 people can browse at one time. The books seem to be in great shape.

Right on Commercial Street in Ptown is one of those spots you instantly want to stay for a while. It's not fancy or fussy- just shelves upon shelves of used books, clearly marked so you know exactly what to look for: fiction, non-fiction, biographies, fashion, cooking, etc. Tim's has several little "rooms," each with its own nook where you can sit down, crack open a book and get lost. Service is nice, prices are o.......k, the selection is surprising and the bookstore feels cozy.

Still a great bookstore for book lovers! I learned they have a warehouse off premises, so even though the shop isn't huge, it features the best parts of a much larger inventory. Owner was very patient with an overtired small child who kept playing with the front door.

Crazy amount of books. Amazing selection. Loosely organized by subjects, books stacked on the floor in some places. Used books some excellently priced!

Cute place. My sister spotted the owner taking a photo of me while i was shopping, then as i was checking out he blatantly took a photo of me as i was standing right in front of him. I am 17. Please be cautious bringing your children here.

Lovely selection of books. So much to browse through and the store is open year round. I'll be back.

I left this store shaken tonight because the owner was rude and a little arrogant during our conversation. Had he been kinder, I might have actually dropped $200 on the signed Mary Oliver volume of poetry, but I felt so awful standing there that I doubt I will ever go in again. I'm sure he's fine with that, based on the other one-star reviews I see here.

We will no longer set foot in this store after the man staffing the desk was rude and downright mean to my son and me (when he was 5 years old). If you want to encourage kids to love reading you should be nice to them when they are excited about a book. He and I were looking at a book and I read him a page or two and he decided he didn't want that one. Then I saw one we had been looking for. I pulled it out and starting reading the first page to him (too make sure it was the right one) and was told by the man that I couldn't read another book, because there was a rule you could only read one book. I laughed, thinking he was joking, and he said, "I'm serious". I was so mad, but my son really wanted the book and we hadn't been able to find it anywhere else (out of print). So I bought it and we left.

SImply overwhelming! SO many books in every room of this house - AMAZING!!!! Recommend highly!

Beware taking your children here. I had gone with my cousins and he had asked if we were all in college, I stated that they were still in high school, so he knew that they were young. Then he proceeded to take multiple pictures(very blatantly) of my cousin who is a minor while she was cashing out/shopping.

Kinda spooky place! You walk down a small "alley" to get to it. It looks like a little house that got lost playing hide-and-seek and was never found. Cute little used and new book store. Cluttered inside but maybe you'll find something worth your time. Books I got were like 6-7 bucks each. Well, not too bad I suppose...

I adored this place. Really affordable. Amazing selection. I found some hilarious titles, a book I'd wanted to read but hadn't gotten around to tracking it down, and other interesting picks. It was hard to narrow down to just what I wanted to carry around with me until we got back to the car. Perfect place to pick out your beach reading, without killing your wallet. FYI-- not the best place to take a child. They do have some children's books, but it's a quiet shop and no phones allowed. It really makes the atmosphere perfect, though, the quietness. You browse, you select your treasures and then you go freely through the loud world with a bag of books at your side.

TIm's is housed in a tumbledown old cottage at the end of an overgrown walk, one that gives the feeling of taking one miles rather than a few meters away from the hurly-burly of Commercial Street. If its collection is just ever so slightly similarly jumbled and otherworldly, I suppose that's part of the place's charm. You don't go to Tim's for a Twilight book or something you just read about in the NYTimes Book Review; you don't even go expecting much of anything specific. Instead, it's a paradise for the eclectic browser, interested in finding a dogeared "House of Mirth", a forgotten chapbook of local poetry, or an oversized catalogue of a mid-seventies exhibition. In short, it's everything that the increasingly cookie-cutter world around us isn't: eccentric, impractical, and really rather wonderful. The only reason for four stars rather than five is that's also rather small...

I was absolutely delighted to have found this store. Where else can you walk out with a veritable stack of books - biographies, obscure novelties, literature, drama, how-to - for just under 40 dollars. Extremely reasonable prices, a highly respectable and well organized treasure trove of wonderful and relevant titles, with a knowledgeable owner who was helpful, cordial and a total professional. A customer even asked him asinine questions - she didn't know the book title nor the author nor any plot specifics, yet still expected help - and though he did not suffer her foolishness he wasn't unkind, even taking a stab in the dark with a proximal suggestion. Note: He is very serious about enforcing the signs indicating no talking on the cell phone while in the store. A customer was summarily rebuked in my presence.

This bookstore used to have such a great reputation, and still gives off a wonderful ambiance, as the other reviews attest. It is great that the store keeps a wide range of cis poetry in stock. Unfortunately, people should be aware that the ownership seems a bit transphobic, expressing open indifference to major recent trans literature. Disappointing and for me a huge disqualifier.

Really neat little shop at the back of a path off the main drag. Had a nice conversation with the shop proprietor or employee about history and a book he was reading. Very cool selection of books -- mainstream titles but also some really interesting out-of-print used items. Great variety considering that it's not that large of a shop.

Smallish used book shop with a great selection and surprisingly low prices. Lots of classics, Beat writers, a room devoted to LGBT writers, a stack of great used records on the floor.

My wife and I were thrilled to find Tim's while wandering down Commercial Street this week - it's quiet, tucked away location is a welcome break from the rest of downtown. The selection is haphazard and some books are pretty dusty, but we spent 45 minutes browsing and came away with a number of excellent finds. The prices are quite reasonable (unless you're getting a collector's item or first addition, understandably) and the man who checked us out was lovely - we spent a few minutes discussing Paul Auster, Jeffrey Eugenides and the joys of Moby Dick. While I might organize things a bit differently (Ann Coulter in Women's Studies? Is that a joke?), a generally satisfying book buying experience.

Not impressed. Especially not impressed by the staff member that dissed my friends book choice about a profession he wants to get in to. I love books and have a variet of interests but anything I found was just way too overpriced. The only knitting book they had was about dog sweaters. Ack. I'd so much rather go anywhere else and pay full price for the book.

I find something here every summer! Friendly staff. Peaceful vibe. Wouldn't be Ptown without it!

As a writer, I've visited this place often over the years and have generally been delighted with the discoveries I've made. This time however (mid-November 2011), I was really angered by the condescending and dismissive attitude of the sales person. In preparation for an article on dogs in fiction I asked about a copy of "One Hundred and One Dalmatians." "No," snapped the clerk, "We don't have movies." I responded that the title I sought was originally a book, written by the well-respected Dodie Smith. Then explaining that I was doing an article on "Dogs in Fiction," I was informed that "that is the most over rated topic in the last 30 years!" My two friends and I quietly left the shop. It's a pity that such a cozy and welcoming space should hire such pretentious help.

I love used bookstores, and I go in this one every summer, but I've never been particularly impressed. There's a generic assortment of books for higher prices than I'd pay at home in Boston. If I were stuck in Provincetown with no means of communication with the outside world, I guess I'd like this place... if the public libraries were all shut down... and I didn't know anybody to borrow books from...

Great for used academic books. Often gets the libraries of retired and deceased professors. If Tim himself is there, he is friendly and very knowledgable about all kinds of books. He has a larger store in Hyannis, but I haven't been there.

Absolutely loved this place, this is what a used bookstore should be! Incredibly well organized, knowledgable staff (owner?), and very well priced. Off the main street a bit, which keeps it quieter that the rest of P-Town's hubbub. Worth going all the way down the cape to just for this place!

Charming used book store, with an outstanding selection and informed staff. It's a must when you're in Provincetown!

This is a great little hole in the wall bookstore off of commercial street in provincetown. You walk down an overgrown alley way into a tiny but well stocked store of about three rooms. I talked to the man I believe to be the owner. He showed me where I could find what I was looking for, and directed me to some great titles. He even made kind suggestions of other titles based on what I was looking for. Great prices as well. I walked out with about 5 books for 18 dollars. I highly recommended this place.

A hidden gem and treasure in Provincetown. Wonderful little back alley bookstore. Perfectly organized, easy to find what you want, and so nice to find something like this still exists in a town that has been changing much too quickly!

Tim's Used Books reminds us of what a sublime cultural foundation the Provincetown of today is built on. A true oasis , charmingly set back from teeming Commercial Street , Time's Used Books is like stepping back in time. The wooden floors muffle your steps and you wander from room to room in peace and quiet , the walls lined with a treasure trove of books of every stripe. A veritible literary cave, the books are beautifully organized, arranged and displayed and the prices make you feel posh enough to buy as many as catch your eye.Tim's Used Books is the real Provincetown, you can mingle with the local cognecenti here and well as with the " real" multi-generational townies. It is a marvelous place that will transform your experience of Provincetown and give you the elements that add up to real vacation.Tim the owner is a gentleman and he staffs the bookstore with everyone from charming young PTown ladies to Billy Hough, one Ptown's most interesting and literate performers!!!

We just went to the bookstore today and while I dont write many reviews, I had to review this place. We loved it! Found exactly what we were looking for and much more. The staff was wonderful and incredibly knowledgeable. So many wonderful books, so little time. You wont be sorry to spend some time wandering around in here.

I found some excellent books here, including Hemingway and Faulkner (who is sometimes hard to come by). Don't expect to be "in and out" -- best to browse the store if you have plenty of time since there are an overwhelming amount of books piled high in long rows. But the selection is vast and the prices are fairly low -- usually under $12 for a new book, and much less for used ones.

This is a great place to escape the craziness of the street. Books are fairly priced and I always seem to find a small pile to purchase.

The staff at this bookstore will discourage any customer from lingering too long. My mom and I were looking through a pile of books and hadn't even turned to peruse another section when a staff member came and straightened out the "mess." Following this my mom and I were in the children's section and had a handful of books when another staff member rudely told us to move to make room for two little boys and their father who weren't even in the section. At this I left the store, while my mom placed her books on the table in front of the staff member stating that she had every intention of purchasing the books until so rudely treated. The staff member then pursued my mother as she exited the store, NOT to apologize, but justify her words.

Just about everything a used bookstore should be - well organized but still haphazard, where serendipity reigns. I'm a long-time Ptown regular, and Tim's is part of my vacation routine: I bring a book or 2 with me to read on trip and my first day or so; when I've read the books I brought with me, I bring them to Tim to trade for another book or 2; read and repeat, until my vacation is over. I know to never go in when in a rush (but really, what is there to rush to in Ptown?) because to do a proper browse requires at least a good half-hour or more. The icing on the literary cake is its great setting, like disappearing down a rabbit hole at the end of a slightly overgrown walkway removed from the madness and hubbub that is Commercial St. at the height of the season, into a world of books for all of the senses - you're surrounded by the look and smell and feel and sound of well-loved paper and books. Heaven!