James Daunt is the founder of the Daunt Books chain, and since May 2011 has been managing director of the bookshop chain Waterstones.  In June 2019, he became the CEO of the US bookstore chain Barnes & Noble, acquired by Waterstones's parent, Elliott Advisors for $683m.

We met last year in London to discuss Waterstones's impressive turn-around. We met last week in a small room (with apologies for the  loud-ish air ventilation system) in the basement of the Union Square branch of Barnes & Noble in New York to talk about what's next for Barnes & Noble (The green room was occupied by Malcolm Gladwell who was delivering a talk at the store that evening).