Haven't Finished Your Shopping? Barnes & Noble.com Comes to the Rescue with `Fast & Free Delivery'

Customers of Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com), a wholly owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, can order up to midnight on December 18th, and still receive free shipping on orders of $25 or more with delivery in time for Christmas. In addition, orders placed by noon EST on December 20th using Next Day Air will arrive by December 24th. See site for details. "December 18th represents one of the latest cut-off dates for free shipping by Christmas of any e-commerce merchant,” said Kevin Frain, chief financial officer of Barnes & Noble.com. "Our expertise in both e-commerce fulfillment and distribution enables us to provide our customers with more time to take advantage of our unique Fast & Free Delivery service.” For customers in Manhattan, the popular Same Day Delivery service is also available through December 22nd; orders placed by 11 a.m. will be delivered by 7 p.m. that day. The online Holiday Delivery Calendar (www.bn.com/delivery) helps customers select the shipping method that will ensure delivery in time for the holidays. Customers are buying a wide range of book titles: Among the most popular categories are fiction and coffee table books. Leading the fiction bestseller list are Next by Michael Crichton, Cross by James Patterson, For One More Day by Mitch Albom, Dear John by Nicholas Sparks, and Lisey’s Story by Stephen King. Popular coffee table books are A Photographer’s Life by Annie Leibovitz, U2 by U2, Greetings from E Street, Amazing Marvel Universe, and Sports Illustrated: The Baseball Book. Cookbooks continue to be holiday favorites with The Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition as the blockbuster cooking title of the season. Humor is again a popular category. Among the most popular books are I Feel Bad about My Neck by Nora Ephron, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence by Amy Sedaris, The Dog Dialed 911: A Book of Lists from The Smoking Gun. One hot new collection for cartoon lovers is Theories of Everything: Selected, Collected, and Health-Inspected Cartoons by Roz Chast. General nonfiction is up this year over last with You, On a Diet by Michael F. Roizen, The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama, and The Innocent Man by John Grisham leading the list. DVD blockbusters include X-Men, the Trilogy Box Set and Special Edition; Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, the year’s biggest blockbuster; Over the Hedge; The Little Mermaid, with fantastic bonus features; Lost Season 2; and for those who have everything, The Janus Film Collection which includes 50 foreign masterpieces with a gorgeous companion book. Music is topping the charts with James Taylor at Christmas, with a Barnes & Noble exclusive version featuring a bonus track: "Deck the Halls”; Vegas, Frank Sinatra Box Set; Perception, The Doors Box Set; and Modern Times, by Bob Dylan. Barnes & Noble CD exclusives include We Get A Kick Out of Jazz Too by various artists, Winter Solstice by various artists, Great Christmas Songbook: Classic Christmas by various artists, Great American Songbook: Classic Crooners by various artists, and Great American Songbook: Classic Divas by various artists. There are also a number of hot titles for children/teens in the Top 100. The biggest include Nancy Tillman’s On the Night You Were Born; Merry Christmas, Curious George; Sandra Boynton’s Your Personal Penguin; Lynne Cheney’s Our 50 States; and Pirateology. And of course, with the movie adaptation hitting theaters later this month, Christopher Paolini’s fantasy Eragon and the sequel, Eldest, are huge hits again this holiday season. Top toys and games include the Roboreptile, the perfect choice for that hard-to-buy-for tween; the Lego Mindstorms NXT for Lego enthusiasts aged 10 and up; Science Kits from Thames & Kosmos, the educational gifts for ages 9 – 14, and the Lionel Polar Express Train Set and Holiday Christmas Train for the whole family to enjoy. New to Barnes & Noble.com are gift baskets, which come in a lovely presentation, don’t require gift wrapping, and make a substantial gift for a child of any age and interest. A broad selection of different styles includes Newborn Girl or Boy baskets, Arts & Crafts, Harry Potter and Games and Puzzles. Barnes & Noble gift cards are also a popular choice. New designs that have been selling well include The Holiday Sled, Curious George and Snowflake cards. The gift cards can be both purchased and redeemed online or at any Barnes & Noble store throughout the country. They do not have any expiration date or dormancy fee. And for those last-minute shoppers, Barnes & Noble online gift certificates can be sent in seconds. The gift certificates, for use online, can even be delivered via e-mail on Christmas Day, December 25. (NOTE TO EDITORS: High-Resolution Images and Online Screen Grabs Are Available) About Barnes & Noble, Inc. Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 801 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.