Riggio's near-half century reign at Barnes & Noble began in 1971 when he used a $1.2 million loan to purchase the company's name and its flagship store on lower Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
Tuesday, August 27, 2024 7:04PMLeonard Riggio, a brash, self-styled underdog who transformed the publishing industry by building Barnes & Noble into the country's most powerful bookseller before his company was overtaken by the rise of Amazon.com, has died at age 83.
This split image sshow, Leonard Riggio, chairman of Barnes & Noble, in New Orleans, Feb. 26, 2008 and a Barnes & Noble in Scottsdale, Ariz., on Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021."Our bookstores were designed to be welcoming as opposed to intimidating," Riggio told The New York Times in 2016. "These weren't elitist places. You could go in, get a cup of coffee, sit down and read a book for as long as you like, use the restroom.
"We are going to seduce them with our square footage, and our discounts, and our deep arm chairs, and our cappuccino," Hanks' character confidently declares. "They're going to hate us at the beginning, but we'll get 'em in the end."For a time, it seemed industry conversation was an ongoing response to Barnes & Noble. Publishers were known to change the cover or title of a book simply because a Barnes & Noble official had objected.
Bezos would liken himself to David taking down Goliath, although the contrast between the leaders also had the feel of an Aesop's fable: The muscular, mustachioed Riggio, a boxer's son, upended by the quick and clever Bezos. During the 2010s, Barnes & Noble seemed unleadable and unwanted. The board announced in 2010 that the company was for sale, but no one offered to buy it. Four CEOs left in five years and Barnes & Noble's stock dropped 60% between 2015 and 2018. New rumors of a sale lasted for months before Elliott Advisors, which had previously purchased the British chain Waterstones, bought Barnes & Noble for $638 million and hired Waterstones chief executive James Daunt to lead B&N.
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Leonard Riggio, transformative leader of Barnes & Noble, dead at 83By the end of the 1990s, an estimated one of every eight books sold in the U.S. were purchased through the chain.
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Leonard Riggio, who forged a bookselling empire at Barnes & Noble, dead at 83Leonard Riggio, a brash, self-styled underdog who transformed the publishing industry by building Barnes & Noble into the country’s most powerful bookseller but later saw his company overtaken by the rise of Amazon.
Read more »
Leonard Riggio, who forged a bookselling empire at Barnes & Noble, dead at 83Leonard Riggio, a brash, self-styled underdog who transformed the publishing industry by building Barnes & Noble into the country’s most powerful bookseller but later saw his company overtaken by the rise of Amazon.
Read more »
Leonard Riggio, who forged a bookselling empire at Barnes & Noble, dead at 83Leonard Riggio, a brash, self-styled underdog who transformed the publishing industry by building Barnes & Noble into the country’s most powerful bookseller but later saw his company overtaken by the rise of Amazon
Read more »
Leonard Riggio, who forged a bookselling empire at Barnes & Noble, dead at 83Leonard Riggio, a brash, self-styled underdog who transformed the publishing industry by building Barnes & Noble into the country’s most powerful bookseller but later saw his company overtaken by the rise of Amazon.com, has died at age 83. Riggio’s reign at Barnes & Noble began in 1971 when he used a $1.
Read more »
Leonard Riggio, who forged a bookselling empire at Barnes & Noble, dead at 83Leonard Riggio, a brash, self-styled underdog who transformed the publishing industry by building Barnes & Noble into the country’s most powerful bookseller but later saw his company overtaken by the rise of Amazon.
Read more »