How Barnes and Noble Is Hitting Back Against Amazon—With Coloring Books

Invites shoppers to unwind in stores with an old pastime

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These aren't easy times for Barnes & Noble, the book seller that's holding its own amid vicious online competition from Amazon. Even if you don't shop in its stores, it's hard not to cheer the 142-year-old retailer on. After all, there's not a whole lot an old-line retailer can do to fight a company that Silicon Valley blogger Benedict Evans has called a "ruthless, relentless, ferociously efficient company that's building the Sears Roebuck of the 21st century."

But Barnes & Noble does have one obvious advantage that dot-com competitors don't, and that's spacious, comfortable stores—647 of them at last count—stores that the chain has gotten extremely good at turning into event spaces, most often for book signings with bestselling authors or celebrities hawking their latest tell-all tomes.

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