Book Corner
Website
100 North Walnut Street
It's funny. I was just grabbing the official website's url to add here, and it seems to be unfinished. Scroll down a bit on the homepage, and it seems they haven't put anything in their "What Our Customers Have to Say!" section. Well, 'if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all', I suppose. I can't just say nothing though, so here's my opinion of Book Corner: Now that Morgenstern's is back and we have a good new bookstore in town, there's no reason to go here. Walking into the Book Corner, there is very little zero personal touch to make me believe that the owners and workers actually read the books they’re selling. There is no staff picks shelf, there are no shelftalkers to be seen, and the only display (apart from a rotating window display for various topical subjects like the eclipse) is just a bestsellers shelf. The store is packed with displays of cute, expensive journals (so many journals) and other ‘bookish’ merchandise to the point of feeling cluttered. That isn’t to say there aren’t books here. In fact, the selection is quite decent for the square footage of the place. Just from visiting a few times though, I don’t get the sense that very much care goes into the selection of books. Everything is newer and/or popular.
Now, Corner Bookstore is rather unremarkable as a bookstore, but in terms of jigsaw puzzles, it is by far the best shop in the city. Before I adopted cats and moved into an apartment too small to have a dedicated space for them, I was a huge puzzler. In another world, if I was to write about all the places you can buy good jigsaw puzzles in Bloomington, this would absolutely be my top pick. Particularly special is their collection of Pomegranate puzzles, one of my favorite brands. Puzzles line the tops of all of the shelves and are stacked window-high. If you enjoy puzzles, you’re seriously missing out if you haven’t been here yet.
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