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![]() But it brought along a new CEO, James Daunt, who was famous for leading what seemed like a miraculous turnaround of a British book chain called Waterstones. SELYUKH: Then in 2019, Barnes & Noble was bought by a hedge fund, which is often a scary development. Its online store lagged behind while its physical stores got overrun by gadgets and blankets and stuff in pursuit of any kind of sale.įLANIGAN: We sort of went off the rails, I think, a little bit, and we got away from who we were as booksellers. What once was an archetypal big-box villain to independent bookstores became lunch for Amazon. SELYUKH: Barnes & Noble slowly collapsed through the 2010s. After years in survival mode, the chain is opening about 30 new stores this year, returning to places it had abandoned and even taking over former Amazon bookshops.įLANIGAN: I would say probably 2006, 2007 was the last time we opened this many stores. ![]() SELYUKH: Janine Flanigan heads up store planning and design at Barnes & Noble, and she's been busy. JANINE FLANIGAN: Everything you see in the store will be brand-new. There's, like, a whole nook of manga, another nook of books for young readers, graphic novels. (Whispering) Games, puzzles, travel are all in kind of a little nook. Inside is lit up and bright with bookshelves arranged, not in rows of alphabetical stacks, but in little thematic rooms so people linger and browse and maybe find something they didn't know they wanted. I'm here to check out the chain's makeover. (Whispering) It's really quiet in here, which makes sense. I'm kind of cutting across the small parking lot to go from the old, shut-down Barnes & Noble to the brand-new, recently opened Barnes & Noble. As NPR's Alina Selyukh reports, Barnes & Noble is once again expanding.ĪLINA SELYUKH, BYLINE: The ghost of Barnes & Noble past meets the spirit of Barnes & Noble future in a single shopping center. Then, the bookseller fell to the brink of extinction. Barnes & Noble was once the biggest of its kind.
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