Even though it’s about two things I like and know a lot about, I wasn’t going to link this NYT article about Barnes and Noble as it seems like a full-on PR plant, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot since I read it.

Mr. Daunt believes in local experimentation to such an extreme degree that last year he allowed a Barnes & Noble in Oviedo, Fla., to change its name. The Oviedo Mall is now the site of the nation’s one and only B. Dalton Bookseller store, named after a chain that Barnes & Noble acquired in 1987 and liquidated in 2010. In a demonstration of the company’s commitment to inconsistency, the location now has a blue and red B. Dalton Bookseller sign above the entrance — and Barnes & Noble-branded materials within.

Canada’s biggest bookseller, Indigo, is going through it right now — the founder and CEO left not long ago and handed the keys to a non-book retail guy who did things like start selling vibrators and $900 pizza ovens. Now the BBQ guy is out, the founder is back, and claiming that she was checked out for a long time while still CEO.

Here’s an interview with her where she outlines what went down from her perspective.

If you want an analysis with 100% less spin and jargon, Ken Whyte dissects it frequently in his (formerly free, but worth paying for) Substack.

Meanwhile, they just opened a big new store near me that I spent an hour in, then left empty-handed. I couldn’t find a book at the bookstore. That almost never happens.

Anyway — I hope Indigo figures it out, and I hope the Barnes and Noble article is printed out and hung on the wall at every executive’s office.