Retail, E-reader | featured news

Barnes & Noble posted a loss for its fiscal fourth quarter on sales that barely inched higher. The loss, while narrower than the one a year earlier, was larger than expected and revenue growth fell short of hopes. Sales of the Nook e-reader fell.

Microsoft Corp will invest $300 million in Barnes & Noble Inc's digital and college businesses in a deal that values the businesses at $1.7 billion.

Here's an interesting idea: that Barnes and should consider splitting the company. Separate the physical bookstores from the virtual business of the Nook and allow that digital business the room and capital to compete with Apple's iPad and Amazon's Kindle?

RadioShack will begin selling Barnes & Noble Nook e-readers next month. The retailer already carries iPads and Kindles.

What happens when a pioneer like Borders goes out of business? Depends on who you ask. A day after the bankrupt Ann Arbor, Mich.-based chain said it would seek court approval to sell off its assets and shutter its remaining 399 stores, everyone from publishers to consumers is assessing what it would mean if the company that started the big-box bookseller concept vanished. The move could have a wide ranging - and different -- impact on everyone from authors to consumers to competitors at a time when the industry is desperately trying to adapt to a new generation of readers who'd rather browse on an electronic book or tablet computer than turn the page of a paperback.

Author J.K. Rowling has joined the 21st century on her own special terms. One of the world's most famous digital holdouts, Rowling announced Thursday that a new interactive website ...