.Welcome to Today in Books, our regular round-up of fictional headlines at the junction of politics, culture, media, and even more.I was actually visiting carry out a big brochure of book lists I have actually been actually picking up over the final handful of weeks, but the information that Leonard Riggio, that developed Barnes & Noble right into the Goliath we know today, passed away today is actually visiting preempt that.Rather, I give the 10 very most exciting factors to know about Riggio, one of the absolute most influential figures in United States manuals of all time. (If you wish to read through a really good obit, I suggest this in the Chicago Sun-Times.).Riggo began in the book-selling company while studying at NYU with very first organization, The Student Publication Substitution.In 1997, at the height of Barnes & Royalty's prominence, Riggio said he read through 7 books.Nora Ephron attempted to entice Riggio to allow her shoot You have actually Got Mail in a Barnes & Noble, yet Riggio rejected, claiming he believed the motion picture was actually an unfavorable judgment of him as well as his organization (to which Ephron responded, "if I had actually would like to model it after you, I will possess cast John Travolta rather than Tom Hanks.").Barnes & Royalty, under Riggio's leadership, was the initial significant merchant to become available on Sundays ... as well as to possess public restrooms.In the five years prior to Barnes & Noble was actually marketed to Elliot Advisers in 2019, the company had four different CEOs.Stephen Riggio helped his bro Leonard beginning at the grow older of 14 as well as at one aspect was actually chief executive officer of barnesandnoble.com.Leonard Riggio, by means of his philanthropic company, devoted $twenty million dollars toward aiding construct homes for targets of Hurricane Katrina.Riggio got the original Barnes & Noble shop on fifth Avenue in 1971 along with a $1.2 thousand dollar loan.A handful of years later, that same 5th Avenue retail store ended up being "The Globe's Largest Book shop," filling greater than 150,000 labels.At BookExpo in 2018, the President of the United States Booksellers Organization President Oren Teicher himself presented Riggio for his keynote deal with after decades of bitterness between indie book stores as well as Barnes & Noble: "My status here, performing what I will carry out, would certainly possess been impossible to imagine numerous years ago.".