Barnes & Noble was once the avatar for sinister big-box stores on the march against independent businesses. In 1998's You've Got Mail, Tom Hanks plays an executive at Foxbooks, a thinly disguised bookstore chain, who puts out of business (and also, weirdly, seduces) an independent bookseller played by Meg Ryan. Local bookstores were, at the time, folding en masse, and people were mad about the growing predominance of chain retail. Then Barnes & Noble got its comeuppance. In the years after the 2008 financial crisis, it closed more than 150 stores. To some extent, the bookstore was experiencing the same predicament of chain retail generally, which, after robust expansion that put mom-and-pop shops out of business, declined faster than independent stores in the age of e-commerce. Amazon was doing to Barnes & Noble what Barnes & Noble had done to local bookstores. But today, in a world more online than ever, Barnes & Noble is experiencing a revival. It opened 60 new stores last year...
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