.Invite to Today in Books, our day-to-day round-up of fictional headlines at the intersection of politics, society, media, and also more.I was actually going to perform a big list of record checklists I have actually been actually accumulating over the last couple of full weeks, but the information that Leonard Riggio, who created Barnes & Royalty in to the Goliath we know today, passed away today is visiting assume that.As an alternative, I offer the 10 most exciting factors to find out about Riggio, some of the most significant figures in United States books of perpetuity. (If you intend to go through a good obit, I suggest this one in the Chicago Sun-Times.).Riggo started in the book-selling service while researching at NYU with first company, The Pupil Manual Swap.In 1997, at the height of Barnes & Noble's prominence, Riggio mentioned he read through 7 publications.Nora Ephron made an effort to entice Riggio to let her shoot You've Acquired Mail in a Barnes & Royalty, but Riggio refused, claiming he believed the motion picture was actually a critical remarks of him and also his business (to which Ephron responded, "if I had actually would like to create it after you, I would possess appointed John Travolta rather than Tom Hanks.").Barnes & Royalty, under Riggio's leadership, was the first primary retail store to be accessible on Sundays ... as well as to possess public washrooms.In the five years just before Barnes & Noble was actually offered to Elliot Advisers in 2019, the company possessed four various CEOs.Stephen Riggio worked with his brother Leonard starting at the grow older of 14 and also at some aspect was CEO of barnesandnoble.com.Leonard Riggio, via his charitable association, dedicated $20 thousand bucks toward assisting build homes for sufferers of Storm Katrina.Riggio got the original Barnes & Noble shop on fifth Opportunity in 1971 with a $1.2 million buck loan.A few years eventually, that exact same 5th Method outlet came to be "The Planet's Largest Bookstore," filling much more than 150,000 titles.At BookExpo in 2018, the Head of state of the American Booksellers Organization Head Of State Oren Teicher themself offered Riggio for his principle handle after many years of displeasure in between indie book stores and also Barnes & Royalty: "My status here, doing what I will carry out, would have been difficult to envision many years back.".