Rosie Thomas + Anna Gavalda "Upstairs at the Square" May 10, 2007

NEW YORK, NY (April 19, 2007) – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today announced the next event in its new series, “Upstairs at the Square,” held at the Union Square Barnes & Noble in Manhattan (33 East 17th Street at Union Square). On Thursday, May 10, at 7pm, singer-songwriter Rosie Thomas, whose new album is These Friends of Mine (Nettwerk Records), and Anna Gavalda, whose new novel is Hunting and Gathering (Penguin Group USA) discuss and perform their work. Journalist Katherine Lanpher hosts the program. Admission is free, and no tickets are required. Seating is available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Discussing the inspiration behind These Friends of Mine, Rosie Thomas (rosiethomas.com) reflects, “Whether you are a musician, painter, or whatever, there is a passion that sometimes gets lost because all of a sudden you have to clock in or have deadlines. I sort of wanted to get back to that time when I played music for nothing.” The album began as an informal, organic collaboration for Rosie, Sufjan Stevens and another songwriter friend, Denison Witmer, while all three lived together in an apartment in Brooklyn. Rosie’s music typically exists in the intangible realm of memory, where childhood idylls meet adult expectations. But These Friends of Mine finds Rosie more often channeling the concrete – the actual concrete, the streets and sidewalks of New York City.

Anna Gavalda is an internationally acclaimed, prize-winning author, widely regarded as one of France’s newest literary stars. Voici hailed her as “a distant descendant of Dorothy Parker” and “a gifted literary stylist.” Vogue said she was “graced with the Gallic virtues of dry wit and almost involuntary elegance.” Building on the dazzling success of her short story collection, I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere, which sold over 800,000 copies in her native France, and followed up by Someone I Loved, she has newly galvanized the literary world with her latest offering, Hunting and Gathering. This epic new novel of intimate lives, filled with the “humanity and wit” (Marie Claire) that has made it a sensation in France, Gavalda explores the twists of fate that connect four people in Paris. With arresting naturalism and a lively variety of perspectives, she writes simply – and beautifully – of human beings longing to connect.

Katherine Lanpher (katherinelanpher.com) is an award-winning print and broadcast journalist. Springboard Press recently published her first book, Leap Days: Chronicle of a Midlife Move.

Audio downloads of all nine previous events are available on Barnes & Noble.com (bn.com/upstairs).


About Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 793 bookstores in 50 states. For the fifth year in a row, the company is the nation’s top retail brand for quality, according to the EquiTrend® Brand Study by Harris Interactive®. Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com), one of the Web’s largest e-commerce sites and the number one online bookseller for quality among e-commerce companies, according to the latest EquiTrend survey.

General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company’s corporate Web site: http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com.


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