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Amazon Was Supposed to Kill the Bookstore. James Daunt Had Other Plans | Better in Person

He started with one small shop in London. He has since resuscitated both Barnes & Noble and Waterstones. He tells Stephen Dubner exactly how he does it. If you'd like to see the video version of Better in Person, you can watch it on YouTube or Apple Podcasts.
Duration
32m
Broadcast on
08 Sep 2026
Audio Format
other

He started with one small shop in London. He has since resuscitated both Barnes & Noble and Waterstones. He tells Stephen Dubner exactly how he does it.
 

If you'd like to see the video version of Better in Person, you can watch it on YouTube or Apple Podcasts.


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This episode of Better in Person is presented by Chat GPT. Put Chat GPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects, download the new Chat GPT Desktop app today. Hey there, it's Stephen Dunder. And this is a bonus episode of our new TV talk show, Better in Person. If you want to watch the video, which is a whole different experience, it is on the Freakonomics YouTube channel, or look for Better in Person on Apple podcasts. My guest today is James Daunt, a name you may not know but after listening to this episode, I think you will understand why I was so excited to speak with him. As always, thanks for listening. I think 30 years ago all the bookstore chains were ruling the world and the idea that I would then be running them all is, yes, fanciful. And indeed, I may wake up at some point and find it was all some sort of weird mushroom that I ate last night. Did you have a mushroom lesson? I did not. Well, not that sort anyway. This is Better in Person with Stephen Dunder and James Daunt. James Daunt is not a household name, at least in most households, but he always has been in mind. Years ago, he opened a small independent bookshop in London, Daunt Books, which many people consider their very favorite bookstore. From there, he somehow went on to revive two of the biggest bookstore chains in the world, Waterstones in the UK and Barnes & Noble in the US. You could argue that James Daunt helped save the very idea of the bookstore, maybe the printed book itself. So, how did that happen? I wanted him to start from the beginning, so I asked what his sales pitch was when he first opened Daunt Books. This is going to be an amazing bookstore. We're going to absolutely nail it and we're going to take over every other bookstore in the western world. No, it was not what we were saying. But the idea was to create a nice bookstore, and that hopefully it would work. I love that it came out the way it did. I don't understand how you could have such confidence in opening a bookstore in 1890. It was deeply foolish and born of naivety, and those who thought it would end in tears were nearly right. I left university with zero plan. What did you study? A history. Oxford? Cambridge. Cambridge, sorry. That's a very UK, you know, but no idea what I wanted to do. But there were these things called banks and no idea what they did. But one of them was hiring, and you could come and live in New York, and that seemed really quite exciting. So I joined J.P. Morgan. What were those four years of work like? Did you enjoy it? Did you think about a career in banking? I thought it was completely fantastic. It was engaging. It was compulsive. It was really interesting, but it turns out only interesting to other bankers.
My then girlfriend really didn't find it interesting at all. She thought it was boring beyond belief and said no. Wait a minute. I was in the impression that the girlfriend who said that is your current wife, or is that a different? You know, I've only had one girlfriend and one wife. It's the same. You only had one girlfriend even? Yes. Okay. I'm really dull. So no, I'm not passing any judgment at all. I think it's very, I think it's wonderful. But you quit the job you love that was exciting because your girlfriend, ultimately your wife, thought it was a boring job. And then she wasn't wrong. Really having sort of left to try and think about what to do. I love reading. I love books. I love traveling, but that I couldn't quite see how to parlay that into a future. But a bookstore I could see. So I thought I'd give it a go. Was it a hit from the beginning? No, it took maybe five years to really get going. To begin with, I took a lease on in 1989 when everything was up and I opened in 1990 when everything was down.

Transcription truncated.

He started with one small shop in London. He has since resuscitated both Barnes & Noble and Waterstones. He tells Stephen Dubner exactly how he does it. If you'd like to see the video version of Better in Person, you can watch it on YouTube or Apple Podcasts.