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

September 9, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

James Daunt walked into the corporate headquarters of Waterstones, the ailing 300-store British book chain he had just been asked to rescue, and he fired most of the people there. He did not replace them with a new team. He did not bring in consultants. He simply let the stores run themselves. “I knew how to run a bookstore,” he tells Steven Dubner on Freakonomics Radio, “and I knew that there were 300 bookstores that if I allowed the bookstores themselves to run themselves…we needed to change that immediately.” The old central office had been dictating exactly what every store should stock and how it should look, producing uniform, boring shops that dispirited booksellers and drove away customers. Daunt’s diagnosis was blunt: “You end up with very boring bookstores because they’re uniform.” His cure was to give each store back to its manager.

The Accidental Bookseller

Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.

Read Full Summary →

Free • No credit card required

Listen to Audio Summary Open in App

Never miss an episode of Freakonomics Radio

Get every new episode summarized in your inbox — free, ~5 minutes to read.

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

What you'll learn

1 (00:00) **Introduction: The Man Who Saved the Bookstore** - Steven Dubner introduces James Daunt, the independent bookseller who revived Waterstones and Barnes & Noble.
2 (01:14) **From Banking to Bookselling: A Foolish Start** - Daunt explains his improbable leap from a career at JP Morgan to opening his first bookstore in 1990.
3 (04:54) **A Philosophy of "Quality Will Out"** - Daunt articulates the old-fashioned principles that guide his business decisions.
4 (07:00) **The Unlikely Takeover of Waterstones** - Daunt recounts how he went from owning six small shops to buying the failing 300-store chain.
5 (10:00) **Fixing the Chain: Decentralization and Trust** - Daunt describes the core operational change that turned Waterstones around.
6 (13:11) **The Barnes & Noble Rescue Mission** - Daunt explains why he and his new owner, Elliott Management, stepped in to acquire the struggling American chain in 2018.
7 (14:43) **The Bookstore vs. The Algorithm** - Daunt makes the case for the physical bookstore's value proposition against Amazon.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Guests on this episode

Steven Dubner

Show Notes

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.