Alarm about declining interest in books is perpetual. But, as bookselling reaches unexpected heights, James Daunt, the chief executive of Barnes & Noble, thinks a different future is at hand. Daunt, the most important man in bookselling, maintains that a literary culture is something booksellers are well placed to build. It was the Friday before Labor Day, a lowering sun, when James Daunt, the most important man in bookselling, spilled off a train and turned to work. He had reached the end of the track in New Jersey. His destination, the Barnes & Noble in Eatontown, was three miles in from the shore. In the normal course of things, Daunt, who is tall and English and who often has the look of someone trying and failing to be invisible, would weave across the final stretch by bicycle--he has a folding Brompton--but the afternoon was muggy, and the traffic unkind, so he crammed into a rideshare car. On the map, Eatontown looked minuscule, but on the approach it unfurled: shopping mall ...

Waterstones would stock books created using artificial intelligence, the company's boss has said, as long as they were clearly labelled, and if customers wanted them. However, James Daunt, a veteran of the bookselling industry, said he personally did not expect that to happen. There's a huge proliferation of AI generated content and most of it are not books that we should be selling, he said. But it would be up to the reader. An explosion in the use of artificial intelligence, or AI, has prompted heated debate in the publishing industry, with writers concerned about the impact on their livelihoods.