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Barnes & Noble isn’t near dead, but a lot of writers are lining up to lament its passing. They say the chain’s demise would be a blow to books, especially in suburban America.

Struggling bookstore chain Barnes & Noble plans to close a slew of stores over the next decade, its chief executive told the Wall Street Journal.

A Brazilian judge has ordered bookstores to ensure that the erotic trilogy "Fifty Shades of Grey" is out of the reach of minors.

Even without best sellers on the scale of last year’s Steve Jobs biography, owners of independent bookstores say sales are good, and that Kobo e-readers have been a boon.

Amazon prides itself on unraveling the established order. This fall, signs of Amazon-inspired disruption are everywhere. There is the slow-motion crackup of electronics showroom Best Buy. There is Amazon’s rumored entry into the wine business, which is already agitating competitors. And there is the merger of Random House and Penguin, an effort to create a mega-publisher sufficiently hefty to negotiate with the retailer on equal terms.

“Care of Wooden Floors,” by Will Wiles, is the kind of novel you’d expect to see on a “staff picks” shelf at an independent bookstore. A slim but sophisticated farce by a relatively unknown author, the book is full of witty asides and snappy comments about modern life; its wry, endearingly hapless narrator feels like he might have stepped out of a Nick Hornby story.

Barnes & Noble, the country’s largest bookseller, said data thieves hacked into payment devices at 63 of its stores nationwide and may have stolen credit and debit card information from customers.

As July melted into August, college towns around the country began to swell with incoming freshmen, returning students and faculty, and campus bookstores began to stock their shelves.

Shares of Barnes and Noble plummeted Thursday following the company’s announcement that it will explore options to spin-off its Nook digital unit. Company stock had fallen over 20 percent in morning trading, a response to a company release that also disclosed that Barnes and Noble has lowered its yearly revenue guidance.

Barnes & Noble's CFO resigned amid the bookseller's shift to digital technologies, naming Controller Allen Lindstrom as interim CFO.