Sep 9, 2026 · 32 min
James Daunt bets bookstores on local judgment
Amazon Was Supposed to Kill the Bookstore. James Daunt Had Other Plans | Better in Person
Daunt’s revival of Waterstones and Barnes & Noble tests whether physical retail can compete through expertise, community, and curation rather than convenience.
- 1Local autonomy helped Daunt replace centralized control with store-level expertise at Waterstones and Barnes & Noble.
- 2Physical bookstores create emotional and social value through browsing, discovery, and gathering that online retail cannot fully reproduce.
- 3Retail improvement requires experimentation, patience, and the freedom to learn from mistakes rather than chasing instant results.
Don't miss
Daunt demonstrates how Barnes & Noble uses thematic, locally curated displays to turn a store into a discovery experience.
The brief
James Daunt left banking to open Daunt Books during the 1990 recession, then built a retail philosophy around quality, persistence, and long-term thinking.
When Waterstones neared administration, Daunt reversed centralized control, giving individual stores more authority and trusting the talent already on the shop floor.
Barnes & Noble mattered beyond its own stores: Daunt presents it as part of the wider book market, with thematic displays and local curation driving discovery.
His case for physical bookstores rests on experience—browsing, choosing, carrying, and gathering create emotional and social value that delivery cannot replicate.
The clearest lesson is operational, not nostalgic: bookstores improve through experiments, mistakes, and gradual learning rather than fast, centralized transformation.