.Welcome to Today in Books, our regular round-up of literary headings at the intersection of national politics, society, media, as well as extra.I was visiting carry out a gigantic catalogue of record checklists I have been accumulating over the final couple of weeks, yet the news that Leonard Riggio, who created Barnes & Noble right into the Goliath we know today, perished today is visiting assume that.Rather, I supply the 10 most intriguing things to find out about Riggio, one of the best influential have a place in American books of all time. (If you want to read through an excellent obit, I advise this one in the Chicago Sun-Times.).Riggo started in the book-selling business while studying at NYU along with 1st organization, The Student Book Swap.In 1997, at the elevation of Barnes & Noble's supremacy, Riggio said he read 7 books.Nora Ephron attempted to persuade Riggio to permit her shoot You have actually Acquired Mail in a Barnes & Noble, however Riggio rejected, mentioning he believed the flick was a critical remarks of him and also his business (to which Ephron replied, "if I had would like to model it after you, I would certainly possess designated John Travolta as opposed to Tom Hanks.").Barnes & Noble, under Riggio's management, was the first major merchant to be accessible on Sundays ... and also to possess public washrooms.In the 5 years just before Barnes & Noble was actually marketed to Elliot Advisers in 2019, the company had 4 different Chief executive officers.Stephen Riggio benefited his brother Leonard beginning at the grow older of 14 and also at some point was actually chief executive officer of barnesandnoble.com.Leonard Riggio, with his charitable company, committed $20 thousand bucks toward helping develop homes for victims of Cyclone Katrina.Riggio bought the original Barnes & Royalty retail store on 5th Method in 1971 along with a $1.2 million dollar loan.A handful of years later on, that very same fifth Method store came to be "The Globe's Largest Book shop," filling more than 150,000 labels.At BookExpo in 2018, the Head of state of the American Booksellers Organization President Oren Teicher themself launched Riggio for his principle handle after decades of displeasure in between indie bookstores and Barnes & Royalty: "My status listed below, doing what I will carry out, would have been impossible to think of many years ago.".