NEW YORK, NY (January 23, 2007) – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today announced the next event in its new series, “Upstairs at the Square,” held at the Union Square Barnes & Noble in Manhattan (33 East 17th Street at Union Square).  On Tuesday, February 6th, at 7PM, Paul Auster, acclaimed novelist, poet and translator whose latest work is a new novel entitled Travels in the Scriptorium (Henry Holt & Company, January 23), and Sophie Auster, whose eponymous debut album has won her a growing fan base in the U.S. and Europe, discuss and perform their work. Journalist Katherine Lanpher will again host the program.  Admission is free, and no tickets are required.  Seating is available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Paul Auster is the Brooklyn-based bestselling author of 12 previous novels, including The Brooklyn Follies, Oracle Night, The Book of Illusions, and Timbuktu.  His work has been translated into more than 30 languages.  Both chilling and poignant, Travels in the Scriptorium is described as vintage Auster: mysterious texts, fluid identities, a hidden past, and, somewhere, an obscure tormentor.  And yet, as we discover during one day in the life of Mr. Blank, his world is not so different from our own.  A man pieces together clues to his past—and the identity of his captors—in this fantastic, labyrinthine novel.

Recently featured on the cover of Rolling Stone in Spain, in a French Elle spread entitled “Brooklyn Baby,” and as one of Paper magazine’s “Beautiful People,” singer, actress, model and college student Sophie Auster (www.sophieauster.com) can confidently be called one to watch.  In her self-titled CD, Sophie Auster, she sings the translated poetry of Robert Desnos, Guillaume Apollinaire, Paul Eluard, Tristan Tzara, Philippe Soupault, and of course, a few works by her father, Paul Auster, to the accompaniment of original music by Michael Hearst and Joshua Camp of cult-favorite musical duo One Ring Zero.

Katherine Lanpher is an award-winning print and broadcast journalist.  Springboard Press recently published her first book, Leap Days: Chronicle of a Midlife Move.

The next “Upstairs on the Square” will take place on Wednesday, March 7th, at 7PM.

Audio downloads of all six previous events are available on Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com/upstairs).  They include:

• The series premiere on June 21 with Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert and singer-songwriter Jen Chapin, whose new album is Ready.
• July’s event with Absurdistan author Gary Shteyngart and pop sensation Sondre Lerche, whose latest album is Duper Sessions.
• The August edition with Mystic River author Dennis Lehane and singer-songwriter Duncan Sheik, composer of the Broadway musical Spring Awakening.
• In September, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints director/author Dito Montiel and singer-songwriter Jesse Malin, whose latest album is The Heat.
• In October, The Dissident author Nell Freudenberger and jazz-rock musician Howard Fishman, whose latest album is look at all this!
• In January, David Lynch, director of Inland Empire, and author of Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness and Creativity, and Au Revoir Simone, whose new album, The Bird of Music, will be released this spring.