Meet Acclaimed Singer-Songwriter John Wesley Harding and Bestselling Author Laura Lippman "Upstairs at the Square” at the Union Square Barnes & Noble on Monday, April 27th

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today announced the next edition of its hit series, "Upstairs at the Square” – recommended by The New Yorker, New York, Time Out New York, The Village Voice, WWD Scoop, Time Out London, and more – at the Union Square Barnes & Noble in Manhattan (33 East 17^th Street at Union Square). On Monday, April 27^th, at 7pm, John Wesley Harding, whose new album is Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead, and Laura Lippman, whose new book is Life Sentences, discuss and perform their work in conversation with host Katherine Lanpher. Admission is free, and no tickets are required. Seating is available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

After a brief hiatus spent authoring the internationally bestselling novel Misfortune (nominated for the Guardian First Book Award and the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize) and By George (named a 2007 New York Public Library "Book to Remember”) under his given name, Wesley Stace, singer-songwriter John Wesley Harding (www.johnwesleyharding.com), returns to his musical roots with his latest record, Who Was Changed And Who Was Dead. Harding recorded Who Was Changed, his first album since 2004’s Adam’s Apple, with backing band The Minus Five (featuring Scott McCaughey and Peter Buck of REM). The record also features Mike Viola (Candy Butchers), Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) and Kelly Hogan. Since his debut Here Comes The Groom on Sire Records in 1990), Harding has explored many of the darker corners of contemporary music, from traditional folk to garage rock. His songs have been featured in movies such as High Fidelity, and he has recorded duets with Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed and Josh Ritter among others. He has recorded 10 albums for both major (Sire, Hollywood) and independent (Mammoth, Rhino, Appleseed) labels alike, and was also the subject of an ambitious concert movie, A Bloody Show, filmed at Seattle’s Bumbershoot, featuring the songs from Misfortune performed by an a capella group, a string quartet and a rock band, with Robyn Hitchcock in the role of the narrator. His novels have been published by Little Brown in the U.S. (with Misfortune’s film rights optioned). His third novel is due in late 2009.

Since the publication of her first novel, Baltimore Blues, in 1997, Laura Lippman (www.lauralippman.com) has won virtually every major award given to U.S. crime writers, including the Edgar Award, Anthony Award, Agatha Award, Nero Wolfe Award, Shamus Award, and the Quill Award. What the Dead Know, published in 2007, was a New York Times bestseller and was chosen as one of the best books of the year by critics at the New York Times, Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, People, Village Voice, and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Lippman has published fifteen books to date. Her thirteenth, Another Thing to Fall, is the tenth installment in the popular "Tess Monaghan” series, which centers on a young private investigator in Baltimore. Hardly Knew Her, a collection of her short stories and a never-before-published novella, was published in September. Her new novel, Life Sentences, was praised by The San Francisco Chronicle for the laudable way that it "explores the untrustworthiness of memory and the gulf in understanding that can exist even among friends and family. And Lippman filters it all through the prisms of class and race.” In The Guardian (UK) recently, she notes, "I am drawn to stories about the quotidian – marriage, friendship, childhood, work, life, death.” A former Baltimore Sun reporter, Lippman lives in the city with her husband, the writer David Simon, creator of The Wire and Homicide: Life on the Street, and is at work on her next novel.

Katherine Lanpher (www.katherinelanpher.com) is an award-winning print and broadcast journalist. Springboard Press published Leap Days, her debut collection of essays, in 2006.

"Upstairs at the Square,” which celebrates three years this June, has paired authors such as William Gibson, Tom Wolfe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, David Lynch, Anna Gavalda and Min Jin Lee with musicians including Duncan Sheik and members of the cast of Spring Awakening, Badly Drawn Boy, Sondre Lerche, Au Revoir Simone, Aimee Mann, Craig Finn 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 778 bookstores in 50 states. Barnes & Noble 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.