Daunt: Young adults drove bookstore sales long before BookTok existed
James Daunt · The Barnes & Noble comeback, from the CEO who did it (James Daunt) · Aug 21, 2026 · at 19:52
James Daunt, CEO of Barnes & Noble and Waterstones, discusses reading demographics and pushes back on the idea that youth reading trends like BookTok are novel phenomena.
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“We've also, at the core of our market, and this has been since I started bookselling, 36 years ago, has been these three young adults, so teenagers up into people through their early twenties. That's when people really engage with bookstores and with reading, and it's, That's where a lot of the bestsellers come. And we then read constantly that now it's all about book talk or it's all about romantic or it's all as though these are new things and they're not, it's just a constant cycle of this demographic reading books like stink.”
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James Daunt: None whatsoever. I mean, literally zero.”
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I very, very much doubt it, but it will take categories of books out quite clearly.
Such as?
Home study guides, you know, you, that will, that's an easy thing.”
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