Barnes and Noble Is Back

I did something this month that I haven’t done in quite a long time: I bought a book at Barnes and Noble.

I know, shocking isn’t it? America’s largest big-box bookstore actually got me to purchase an item there. How rare is that these days? But I did. I walked out of my local store with copies of Epictetus’s Discourses and a Penguin Classics edition of Apocryphal Gospels. 

Shy of groceries, I rarely buy things from large chain stores, partially because I live in rural Wisconsin where, save for Walmart, Piggly Wiggly, and Menards, they’re rare, and partially because I’ve become increasingly alienated from them. In the past decade, Gamestop has all but abandoned their original purpose of selling video games, becoming a trashy merchandise store. Best Buy was the latest domino to fall, announcing their decision to stop selling DVDs and Blu-Ray discs this January. These stores’ hostility toward physical media has meant that a majority of my new movies come from Amazon—which leaves a bad taste in my mouth. 

Barnes and Noble has been one of the more disappointing stores in this respect. I love books; I also love buying books. I’m the kind of person who keeps a therapy pile of unread books dangling precariously next to my bed. Buying new books makes me happy. I’ve tolerated Half Price Books’ annoying excesses for this reason. Sure, the high prices, lack of plastic bags, and “Banned Books” pandering made me feel like plugging my nose as I browsed, but at least they remained true to their mission of selling ink on paper.

The Barnes and Noble location I used to frequent in the western suburbs of Chicago, before its closing earlier this year, was particularly emblematic of the chain's woes. While I rarely paid attention to bestsellers and new books, the store used to be a peaceful sanctuary, not to mention a repository for a large selection of material. Their selection of manga, history, and philosophy was excellent, the leatherbound editions of literary classics were pristine and aesthetically pleasing, and their clearance section was always filled with fun oddities.

But as my tastes became more eclectic, Barnes and Noble gradually stopped meeting my needs. They obviously didn’t stock older out-of-print books, let alone books that weren’t on the New York Times Bestseller List. Sadly, as brick-and-mortar began declining in the early 2010s, the stores began to mutate in the same manner as Gamestop. The upper floor of my favorite location became a merchandise mart; movies, CDs, and books were displaced in favor of tacky superhero memorabilia, Funko Pops, LEGO sets, and Harry Potter kitsch. Even the Criterion Collection section—which once occupied two sides of an entire aisle—had been chopped down to less than half its glorious size to make space for more cancerous consumer goods. 

It became clear I was no longer the target demographic of the store—which would have been fine if it were still focused on books. But like everything else nowadays, the corporate urge to remove distinctiveness and embrace synergistic sludge transformed brick-and-mortar stores like Barnes and Noble into lifeless collectible stores. Its former draw, the wonderful feeling of  being able to buy a hot coffee and sit quietly with a stack of new, interesting books, had faded into an ocean of tackiness. 

So, what changed? A lot. The past five years have stressed the brand, but the current leadership of the company has shifted focus on remaking their stores. CEO James Daunt spoke with The Wall Street Journal last year about his effort to reshape the company, downsizing many locations and allowing managers more power to shape each store’s direction as they see fit. Dozens of stores moved to smaller retail locations, remodeled their interiors, scaled back stock, and prioritized high-selling items like manga and romance novels. 

I hadn’t experienced one of B&N’s s new locations until this summer, when I visited three separate stores–Algonquin, Bloomington, and Oswego–while traveling through Illinois. The former most surprised me, being one of the smallest B&N branches I’d ever been to. With its more intimate layout and lack of non-book merchandise, it felt more like a Books-A-Million. The sections were smaller, yes, but more focused. The store’s warmth gave it the feel of a cozy reading nook. 

The other two locations felt closer to the B&Ns I was familiar with, as they still maintained sizable toys and collectible selections in the back. The physical media section, of course, had been downgraded, with the Criterion selection able to fit on a measly four vertical shelves and a lone nook dedicated to records and CDs at the back of the store. 

I was impressed regardless. The wood-paneled shelving; the slick, updated logo font; and the focus on grayscale colors and tans shifted the feel of the interior, usually hued in its homely green and yellow tinge. These stores were all single-floor units with half the floor space of the older locations. They felt distinctly modern yet also comfortable and welcoming. The floor space was interesting to explore and as I browsed, I began attentively eyeing the books.I found myself looking at new volumes and feeling tempted to indulge—Elizabeth Varon’s Longstreet biography caught my eye, as did Donald Robertson’s Marcus Aurelius biography and Alister McGrath’s J.I. Packer biography—but settled with the two books mentioned above. 

With the recent passing of B&N founder Leonard Riggio in August, this year certainly marks a transition for the company. Coincidentally, this year also saw the closing of my childhood Barnes and Noble location after 25 years as a focal point of the downtown Naperville area; it had been one of the branches overtaken by consumer goods and collectibles. Like its corporate masters, the store lost its vision in the age of Amazon's two-day delivery. 

Ironically, Riggio’s success was the previous version of that ascendancy into creative destruction. Much like Blockbuster, it transformed from something modest into an all-encompassing behemoth that swallowed its entire industry before being left to rot in the age of streaming and Netflix. Now, in the mid-2020s, Barnes and Noble is crawling back into relevancy. Why? Because it shows a willingness to embrace the independence and feel of smaller bookstores. In an age when its former peers have all but ceased to exist, the company is  opening new stores and its profitability is slowly improving. 

As much as my inner localist despises the demise of brick-and-mortar and physical media and the ascendancy of online oligarchs like Amazon, I was every bit as responsible for that phenomenon as everyone else. 

But retro minimalism is the future; consumers are craving the ability to touch grass, as evidenced by the recent popularity of flip phones and vinyl records. People want authenticity, holistic opportunities to engage with the things that give them meaning. People are willing to stake out specialty stores for high-value items. They want bookstores that feel like bookstores. Barnes and Noble has turned the page from its failures, and I look forward to returning.