Closing the Books on Barnes & Noble

The beach season is over, and it seems that vacationers' annual search for good reads failed to leave Barnes & Noble Inc. with a summer glow. The U.S. bookstore chain said it lost shoppers during the end of spring and first half of summer, marking 17 out of 19 quarters of negative same-store sales and dragging down the stock this week to near its low.

But look on the bright side: Barnes & Noble also just got cheaper for buyers, and one activist shareholder has made a convincing argument for why there may be some buyers lurking. Sandell Asset Management Corp. is calling for Barnes & Noble's board to find a suitor to finally take the $516 million company private. Certainly easier said than done, but some interesting recent developments support the idea.