Opinion: Literary crisis rhetoric ignores reader surge, online book culture |
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In early 2026, Barnes & Noble announced a sizable expansion, with 60 stores scheduled to open nationwide. While this may seem natural given the store’s recent popularity by word of mouth, the corporation has, in truth, been suffering a major decline since the 2010s. With a literary crisis declared throughout the United States, this upcoming development may just be the catalyst we need to instill hope in the nihilistic reading world.
The rise of online book retailers has been nothing short of catastrophic for bookstores, and with Amazon taking up nearly 50% of the book market, Barnes & Noble rapidly lost its footing. In fact, in the past decade, the chain has been forced to close at least 100 stores. To make matters worse, Kindle’s popularity only served to add more pressure on Barnes & Noble, dragging readers away from analog books and toward the digital world of e-reading.
With so much competition and little fight to give, no one would’ve predicted the corporation’s phoenix-like rebirth in the........