Morgenstern's Bookstore
Morgenstern’s Bookstore is the vibrant shining jewel among Bloomington’s bookstores, a favorite of myself and many others. In my tour of the bookstores in Bloomington, I found myself with much more to say about Morgenstern’s than the others, and as such decided to give it its own dedicated page on this blog, separate from the rest of the tour.
Newer residents of Bloomington may not be aware that Morgenstern’s opening in 2021 was actually a reopening. The store actually originally opened in 1991, closing in 1996 following the arrival of a Barnes and Noble and Borders opening in Bloomington the year before. Reading through old articles from The Herald-Times, it’s clear that the store tried to hold on as long as it could. As late as February of that year, owner Rick Morgenstern was still optimistic, saying “We’ve been hit very, very hard, but we’ve stabilized and we’re going to be here for awhile”(The Herald-Times). Unfortunately, his efforts failed and the store was forced to close only two months later.
Floor space was no doubt a reason that the chain stores were able to overpower Morgenstern’s. According to The Herald-Times, Morgenstern’s, with less than 10,000 square feet, was dwarfed by the Barnes and Noble and Borders, which were three and four times larger respectively. They almost certainly had the capability to hold more stock than Morgenstern’s, and in an industry such as books, a higher variety of titles in the store is always a good thing. Large chain bookstores are also in a better position to negotiate deals with publishers, making many of their books significantly discounted compared to independent stores that are forced to sell books at the MSRP with very small margins.
The narrative of a larger store coming in and eating up smaller ones is, of course, not unique to Morgenstern’s, or even the bookstore industry. As an aside, though, I want to mention that Morgenstern’s itself was seen as a threat to even smaller independent stores in Bloomington at the time. Ann Haines, a former volunteer at feminist bookstore Aquarius books, told me that when Morgenstern's came to town, the owner of Aquarius refused to even set foot in the new store out of frustration that it had taken business away. They ended up closing in fall of 1995 after the Borders had set up shop and in anticipation of Barnes and Noble’s upcoming opening. It’s also a fair assumption that Morgenstern’s damaged their business years before, however.
As anyone living in Bloomington currently knows, the two chains did not end up surviving into the present either. The Borders closed in 2011 soon before the company went defunct later in the same year (Indiana Public Media). The Barnes and Noble held on a bit longer, finally closing in 2019 after over twenty years of doing business in Bloomington.
Bookstores in general suffered greatly once amazon cornered the online market. The benefits of shopping online are obvious. Amazon is limited only by the number of books currently in print, but this number is many, many times larger than any physical store could possibly keep stocked. Ebook sales (a market also dominated by Amazon with their Kindle) and Audiobook sales (again, Amazon-owned Audible) also threaten the sales of physical printed books in stores. In addition to the virtually limitless variety, books from Amazon also tend to be cheaper. This is possible because Amazon often sells their books at a loss, using them as a ‘loss leader’ to generate more sales elsewhere on their site (Publisher’s Weekly). It’s not all doom-and-gloom for brick and mortar stores, however. “Booktok”, the hashtag used by influencers and average users promoting books on TikTok, has become wildly popular in the last few years, and is considered at least partially responsible for rising book sales. Sales of physical books are particularly boosted by Booktok (New York Times), as users enjoy holding their book (or book collection) up for the camera. Indeed, our own Morgenstern’s now has a #Booktok table displayed prominently by the entrance.
This recent friendlier atmosphere for bookstores encouraged Morgenstern’s to reopen in 2021. The new location is on Auto Mall Road and boasts a spacious interior with grand displays in the front, walls lined with nooks for every genre and subject, and a cafe and bakery.
Morgenstern's is, without a doubt, my favorite store in town. It's huge, for one thing, and the variety of titles there is unmatched. I also get the real sense that everyone involved in the store truly loves reading and loves sharing reading with other people. The store holds a host of book clubs, often run by staff members, and the shelves are decorated with countless little notes handwritten by the workers recommending various titles. It's probably clear by now that I'm not a fan of 'merch' sold in stores dedicated to selling something else (and if I had the opportunity to talk about GameStop on this blog we'd be here all day) and while Morgenstern's does partake in a bit of merch selling, I think they do it tastefully. Many of the items on sale are from local artists, and all of them are sectioned off into their own corner of the store. The interior design makes it abundantly clear that this is a Bookstore first, and a bookish store (and coffee shop) second. It’s a store that’s near and dear to me, and I hope to visit it often in my last year of living in Bloomington.