New York, New York – September 15, 2008 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, announced today that Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Knopf) is the newest selection in the Barnes & Noble Recommends program.  The book, an international bestseller originally published in Sweden, goes on sale tomorrow, September 16, and can be purchased at any Barnes & Noble store or online at Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com/recommends).

Buzz surrounding the first 10 selections in the Barnes & Noble Recommends program has created a succession of breakout hits. The selections are reviewed by booksellers in stores throughout the country, who cast votes for their favorite from a group of titles. Each title has gone on to become a Barnes & Noble bestseller, topped by Sarah Addison Allen’s Garden Spells, the most successful breakout in the program so far. Five of the selections, including The Thirteenth Tale, The Double Bind, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Child 44, and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, have been optioned for film.

“It is a privilege to introduce our customers to books we have read and loved,” said Jaime Carey, chief merchandising officer of Barnes & Noble, Inc. “We are thrilled with the success of the authors and books we have been behind from the beginning. The titles are riveting reads; ideal choices for thought-provoking conversations at reading groups and book clubs.  Our booksellers will recommend these books for years to come.”

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has been an international sensation and a bestseller in its native Sweden and throughout Europe.  It features an unforgettable heroine: a brilliant, punk-goth 24-year-old computer hacker and private investigator named Lisbeth Salander. Together with Mikael Blomkvist, a financial journalist on a most unusual assignment, she tracks a serial killer through a dangerous maze of business, political and family secrets. Larsson’s narrative unfolds with mounting suspense, detailing the duo’s intellectual ingenuity and increasing courage as they expose hidden cultures of right-wing fanaticism and misogyny and reveal the moral bankruptcy of big capital. As they race across Europe and on to Australia to trap their prey, the reader is held in breathless anticipation until the novel’s unforeseen conclusion.

One Barnes & Noble bookseller who voted for this selection said, “This gritty thriller is packed with deceit, treachery, and plenty of dirty family secrets – enough to fill an entire basement with skeletons.” Another bookseller called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, “Gripping! I even read at stop lights and while I was brushing my teeth.”

The Barnes & Noble Recommends program includes:

• Barnes & Noble store events. Reading group discussions of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo will be held in Barnes & Noble stores across the country.  
• An online book club.  Discuss The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with other readers. Log on to www.bn.com/bookclubs throughout October.
• A free reading group guide.  Customers can ask any Barnes & Noble bookseller for a copy of our free guide on how to start a reading group.  The guide can also be found online at www.bn.com/recommends.

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

The previous 10 Barnes & Noble Recommends selections are:

• Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale (Atria Books).
• Chris Bohjalian’s The Double Bind (Shaye Areheart Books).
• Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Harcourt).
• Paulette Jiles’ Stormy Weather (William Morrow).
• Sarah Addison Allen’s Garden Spells (Bantam Books).
• Maggie O’Farrell’s The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (Harcourt).
• Marisa de los Santos’ Belong to Me (William Morrow).
• Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44 (Grand Central Publishing).
• Ethan Canin’s America America (Random House).
• Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows’ The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (The Dial Press).