Miles away from ornate displays of weight-loss books and clear across town from cardboard cut-outs of Edward Cullen and Rachel Ray, lies an old prairie style home…where books live. Erasmus Books, nestled in a residential neighborhood just east of downtown South Bend, is the absolute foil to the big box booksellers of Grape Road. Featuring old, used, and tenderly loved books on all topics, Erasmus is the book worm’s paradise. No florescent lights, no marketing gimmicks, simply room after room filled to the brim with books and nothing else. The owners of this literary haven understand that you don’t need any fluff to entice bookstore purist – simply good authors and great titles.
Upstairs in the living room you can find literature, poetry, and some philosophy, while the basement features every topic from American history to art history, from African American lit to feminist lit, and from cookbooks to language books. My favorite section, architecture and urban planning, is up on the first floor - along the back wall of the “check-out” room (if you can call it that), but I won’t map out this entire house-o-books. Quietly exploring walls filled with nature guides, bottom shelves of pop art books, and tables piled high with poetry has made Erasmus Books my favorite book shop in the area.
Location: 1027 East Wayne Street, South Bend, IN 46617Hours: Thursday – Sunday, 10 am to 6 pm
2 Tips:
- This place has a quality collection of academic books. The owner is a retired Notre Dame professor and so I think that other profs often sell their old books to the shop.
- Make sure to look on the front few pages to see if it’s a first edition. I’ve found a few Vonnegut first editions there for unbelievably good prices.
Good Prices and a helpful staff; see for yourself and enjoy the variety of titles (fiction and non-fiction)! I enjoy shopping here ten times as much as Barnes & Noble. Parking has never been a problem for me, unlike the UP Mall.
ReplyDeletePOSTED December 21 -- 11 a.m.