Barnes & Noble is aggressively expanding its aggressive expansion plans. Now, besides opening at least 30 new B&N locations in the U.S. this year, it will launch another British invasion: beginning this summer, Waterstones and Daunt Books in the U.K. will begin opening locations throughout the U.S.
"Despite our best efforts, Barnes & Noble remains quintessentially American, right up there with mummy and apple pudding," James Daunt, CEO of Barnes & Noble, managing director of Waterstones, and owner and founder of Daunt Books, said in a statement. "Whilst that is an attractive quality to many of our customers, we believe there is a significant market for the kind of class and charm and erudition at which British bookshops excel."
In a nod to Waterstones' ultimately unsuccessful launch of a handful of stores in the U.S. in the early 1990s, the initial location of the new wave will be in Boston, Mass., where, in 1991, Waterstone's opened its first U.S. store. "We shall throw a grand tea party in Boston to celebrate our return," Daunt said.
In another nod to the first wave of Waterstones--and to differentiate the U.S. and U.K. stores--the new U.S. Waterstones stores will include the apostrophe that Waterstone's used to have before it was dropped a dozen years ago.
Daunt Books, which Daunt founded in 1990 and still owns, separately from B&N and Waterstones, has 10 stores, most in London, as well as a significant publishing operation called... Daunt Books. It will make its U.S. debut in New York City, at Fifth Ave. and 18th St., the site of B&N's longtime flagship store that closed in 2014. "Daunt Books will serve as a reminder to American readers, the publishing industry, other bookshops, and indeed our own B&N booksellers of the heights to which bookselling can ascend," Daunt said. "It is truly a remarkable chain of independents."
Daunt had no comment on rumors that B&N may open locations in the U.K., a dream of the former B&N ownership three decades ago. --John Mutter