Upstairs at the Square: Alaa Al Aswany + Rachael Yamagata October 16, 2008

NEW YORK, NY – September 17 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world's largest bookseller, today announced the next event in its buzzed-about series, "Upstairs at the Square," held at the Union Square Barnes & Noble in Manhattan (33 East 17th Street at Union Square). On Thursday, October 16, at 7pm, Alaa al Aswany, author of Chicago (HarperCollins, October 7) and Rachael Yamagata, whose new album is A Record In Two Parts: Elephants… Teeth Sinking Into Heart (Warner Bros. Records, October 7), discuss and perform their work in conversation with journalist Katherine Lanpher, who hosts the program. The evening's show will be the final "Upstairs at the Square" until 2009. Admission is free, and no tickets are required. Seating is available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Alaa Al Aswany is the internationally bestselling author of The Yacoubian Building, a novel that electrified the Middle East and has been translated into twenty languages, and an outspoken critic who believes that culture is a way to fight both political and religious extremism. He is a dentist by profession as well, as noted by The New York Times Magazine in a lengthy recent profile, "the most famous member of Cairo's very small but vibrant civil society, which includes moderate Islamists as well as young bloggers and techies who use Facebook, YouTube and text messaging to report human rights violations and organize political campaigns." Chicago, his newest novel, is a story of love, sex, friendship, hatred, and ambition with a cast of American and Arab characters achingly human in their desires and needs. He lives in Cairo.

A few rounds of heartbreak … a broken wrist … eight stitches ... It wasn't easy getting here for Rachael Yamagata (www.rachaelyamagata.com). Three years after she began to appear on the public's radar with her self-titled debut EP and full-length album Happenstance, Rachael will release Elephants…Teeth Sinking Into Heart, a single record in two parts, on October 7.

"I didn't set out to make a two part album," Yamagata says. "We just followed the songs' lyrical lead and built them up with textures and sounds that served the story. The beautiful ones were darker and worked with lush arrangements. We used the sounds of rain, tree branches falling on the roof – whatever kept the mood true to this haunted studio in the first stormy days of spring. The second part became more anthemic, like a reclaiming of personal power. There's something raw about it. To me it sounds weathered, but not broken or cynical."

Katherine Lanpher (www.katherinelanpher.com) is an award-winning print and broadcast journalist. Springboard Press published her first book, Leap Days.

"Upstairs at the Square," which celebrated its two-year anniversary this June, has paired authors such as William Gibson, Tom Wolfe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, David Lynch, Anna Gavalda, Min Jin Lee, and Armistead Maupin with musicians including Craig Finn, Duncan Sheik and members of the cast of Spring Awakening, Badly Drawn Boy, Sondre Lerche, Au Revoir Simone, Nicole Atkins, Aimee Mann and more. An archive of recordings is available on Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com/upstairs), where "Upstairs at the Square" is enjoyed by listeners around the world in addition to its live audiences.

About Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world's largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 796 bookstores in 50 states. The company is the nation's top bookseller in quality, and for the fifth year in a row, the top bookseller brand, as determined by a combination of the brand's performance on familiarity, quality, and purchase intent, 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.

General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company's corporate website: www.barnesandnobleinc.com.

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Official Website: http://www.bn.com/upstairs