Cheap and easy — Inexpensive bookstores close to campus

It’s the ultimate college student cliché — we are always, always running low money.

As such, we have to choose where to spend our money here in Bloomington carefully.

Oftentimes, non-essentials like new reading material get sacrificed in favor of more necessary purchases, like food, or in my case, coffee. 

The latest bestseller from T.I.S. College Bookstore can cost as much as four Starbucks vanilla lattes, and when it comes down to a new book or a grande coffee, my caffeine addiction wins every time.

Luckily for literature fans, downtown Bloomington is home to several inexpensive bookstores all within walking distance of campus.

So it is possible to have your cake — or coffee — and eat it, too. Preferably while reading a great new book.


Caveat Emptor Inc.
112 N. Walnut St.
Open Monday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Sunday 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Stacks on stacks on stacks.

Shelves of every kind of book imaginable reach the ceiling of this used bookstore. A $4 copy of “The Introductory Lectures of Sigmund Freud” is nestled next to a $7 “Chef’s Guide to America’s Best Restaurants”. On the opposite shelf sits a beautifully bound 1938 hardcover edition of Charles Dickens’ “The Pickwick Papers” for $11.

Despite the seeming chaos, I never have trouble distinguishing between different genres of books. Handwritten labels like Mystery/Suspense, Self Help and French Literature help patrons find what they are looking for.

Caveat Emptor Inc. also has a lot of sweet personal touches, like a special shelf celebrating Indiana authors and personalized notes to shoppers from “the manager and his minions.”   


Book Corner
100 N. Walnut St.
Open Monday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Sunday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

This tiny shop sits on the corner of Walnut and Kirkwood, about a 15-minute walk from the Sample Gates. It sells a wide variety of magazines, Hallmark cards and the latest best sellers.

I’d recommend this store to the creatively inclined. Photo journals, poetry volumes and eccentric recipe books make this store a Pinterest user’s heaven. I also loved browsing what I’ve titled the “Wall of Classics” — floor-to-ceiling shelves of black-bound Penguin’s Classics from famous authors like Jane Austen and Mark Twain.

Though it’s probably the most expensive of the bookstores I’ve profiled here, Book Corner is still pretty reasonable. Its prices are comparable to T.I.S. and Barnes & Noble.


Boxcar Books and Community Center
408 E. Sixth St.
Open Monday through Friday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Saturday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The brightly painted non-profit bookstore’s mission is “to promote reading, self-education, social equality and social welfare,” according to their website. It also supports charities such as the Midwest Pages to Prisoners Project.

Boxcar Books sells new, used and donated books. A room full of choices will please comic book lovers and graphic novel enthusiasts, and literary rebels will enjoy the banned books display.

My favorite part of this quirky store actually has more to do with its ambiance rather than its merchandise. Every couple shelves, a potted plant named “Cliff” or “Puddles” hides amongst the books, further cementing Boxcar Book as a kind of hippie, granola place to shop.   

­— jenfagan@indiana.edu

Follow columnist Jenna Fagan on Twitter @jenna_faganIDS.