River City Books

By gate B, this is MEM’s main actual bookstore

River City Books sits airside in Terminal B, handy if your flight goes out of the B concourse and you want something better than a news rack. It leans heavily on paperbacks and mass-market titles, but you’ll still spot a few hardcovers and regional Memphis picks mixed in. Expect standard airport pricing, so plan on paying full cover price on a $18–$30 book.

The shop keeps typical Terminal B hours, roughly first-departure to last-arrival, so you can usually duck in between the 6 a.m. bank and the late-evening flights. Because it’s post-security, you need a same-day boarding pass to reach it; anyone meeting arrivals has to grab reading material in pre-security newsstands instead.

You’ll find bestsellers, light fiction, travel reads, and some kids’ books, plus a rack of magazines that still includes actual print newspapers on busy weekdays. Don’t expect rare titles or niche nonfiction; this is more “kill 2–3 hours on a MEM–LAX leg” than build a library. Snacks and bottled drinks sit near the register, usually in the $3–$6 range.

Lines spike right after TSA dumps people into B, especially around the 7–9 a.m. departures, so grab your book before you head down to gates B3–B20. One last tip: check page counts — long-haul readers are better off with a 400+ page paperback here than a glossy magazine that’s gone by pushback.