Barnes & Noble, Inc. : BARNES & NOBLE RECOMMENDS INAUGURAL SELECTION FOR 2012: WILLIAM LANDAY’S DEFENDING JACOB

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Mary Ellen Keating
Corporate Communications
Barnes & Noble, Inc.
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Carolyn J. Brown
Corporate Communications
Barnes & Noble, Inc.
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NEW YORK, NY -- January 31, 2012 -Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, today announced that William Landay's novel Defending Jacob (Delacorte Press) is the latest selection in the Barnes & Noble Recommends program.  The book is on sale today and can be purchased at any Barnes & Noble store, online at Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com/recommends) or instantly downloaded on Barnes & Noble's NOOK™ eBook Readers.

Here's just some of what our booksellers are saying:
"It's the kind of book you buy for your friends, just so you can talk about it."
-Erin Bruce, Store Manager for B&N #2145, Salisbury, MD

"This is one novel I couldn't bear to put down.  I found myself thinking about it when I wasn't reading it." -Tim Baldwin, ASM B&N #2847, Houston, TX

"Defending Jacob is exactly the sort of book you can't help but want to talk about once you've finished. It is a smart, well-written, deeply haunting tale of family and tragedy that lingers with you." -Jessica Valeske, Store Manager B&N #1951, Tigard, OR

Equal parts legal drama and the story of a family in crisis, Defending Jacob is a genre-busting, page-turning, conversation-starting novel that captivated our booksellers.  Assistant DA Andy Barber is respected in his community, tenacious in the courtroom, and happy at home with his wife and son, Jacob.  But when a shocking crime shatters the New England town, Andy is blindsided by what happens next: His fourteen-year-old son is charged with the murder of a classmate.  Jacob insists that he is innocent, and Andy believes him. But as damning facts and shocking revelations surface, as a marriage threatens to crumble and the trial intensifies, the crisis reveals how little a father knows about his son.  Andy will face a trial of his own-between loyalty and justice, between truth and allegation, between a past he's tried to bury and a future he cannot conceive.

William Landay is the author of The Strangler, a Los Angeles Times Favorite Crime Book of the Year, and Mission Flats, winner of the Creasey Memorial Dagger Award for Best First Crime Novel and a Barry Award nominee. A former district attorney who holds degrees from Yale and Boston College of Law, he lives in Boston.

The Barnes & Noble Recommends program includes:
• Promotion in stores, on bn.com, and on NOOK.
• An exclusive interview with William Landay and a free reading group guide for Defending Jacob posted on bn.com http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/defending-jacob-william-landay/1100572462?ean=9780385344227&itm=1&usri=defending+jacob
• An original essay written by William Landay will appear as a More in Store feature on NOOK eBook Readers
• Author appearances in select Barnes & Noble stores

Titles selected for the B&N Recommends program are the books our booksellers can't stop talking about.  Thought-provoking and uniquely engaging, B&N Recommends selections are chosen for sheer reading pleasure and their appeal as book club picks.  Previous selections of the B&N Recommends program include:
• Chris Bohjalian's The Double Bind (Shaye Areheart Books)
• Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Harcourt)
• Tom Rob Smith's Child 44 (Grand Central Publishing)
• Ethan Canin's America America (Random House)
• Mary Ann Shaffer's and Annie Barrows' The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (The Dial Press)
• Stieg Larsson's The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo (Knopf)
• Katherine Howe's The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane (Hyperion/Voice)
• Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale (Simon & Schuster)