New York, New York – April 3, 2007 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, announced today that Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Harcourt) will be the third selection in the Barnes & Noble Recommends program.  The book goes on sale today and can be purchased at any Barnes & Noble store or online at Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com/recommends).  The first two books in the Recommends program were Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale and Chris Bohjalian’s The Double Bind.

“Moshin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a psychological thriller that spans continents and cultures,” said Steve Riggio, chief executive officer of Barnes & Noble, Inc.   “An extraordinary work of empathy and imagination, Hamid’s novel vividly dramatizes the turmoil and terror of today’s world in a single unforgettable voice.”

Told through the framework of a monologue delivered to an American operative in Pakistan, Hamid’s novel charts the descent of a man caught between two cultures locked in mutual misunderstanding.  The book is a thrilling page-turner that, in less than two hundred pages, takes us on a journey from the privileged confines of Princeton University to the anxious streets of contemporary Pakistan; from the sun-baked Greek island of Santorini to a sanitarium in the Hudson Valley; from the galleries of downtown Manhattan to the highest echelons of corporate life.  The journey reveals more about the human realities of the post-9/11 world than a shelf of thick political treatises.

As one of Barnes & Noble’s booksellers who helped pick this selection said, “The Reluctant Fundamentalist is crisp and compelling with an ending that will certainly encourage discussion.  It is a quick read that will have a long, lingering impact.”

The Barnes & Noble Recommends program includes:

• Discussions of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which will be held in Barnes & Noble stores across the country.  
• Author appearances.  Meet Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, at Barnes & Noble.  Visit www.bn.com/recommends for information on Hamid’s store events.
• An online reading group.  Talk with Mohsin Hamid in our exclusive reading group.  Log on to www.bn.com/bookclubs throughout May. 
• A free guide.  Ask any Barnes & Noble bookseller for a copy of our free guide to starting your own reading group.   The guide can also be found online at www.bn.com/recommends.

Selections for Barnes & Noble Recommends are chosen by a group of the company’s booksellers from across the country.  Each selection is a book that Barnes & Noble recommends unconditionally, believes it’s “unputdownable” and especially appropriate for discussion in in-store and online book groups.

The first book in the Barnes & Noble Recommends program was Diane Setterfield’s first work of fiction, The Thirteenth Tale (Simon & Schuster), a story of romantic suspense about a bookseller’s daughter and a famous author with a mysterious past.  The second choice was Chris Bohjalian’s The Double Bind (Shaye Areheart Books), a work combining the compelling pace of a thriller with the emotional depths of the most intimate drama. All of the novels, including The Reluctant Fundamentalist, are riveting reads as well as books of exceptional quality.