Fred Meyer Stores Announce Plans to Sell The All-New NOOK™ and NOOK Color™; Available in Stores Starting July 30

Fred Meyer Stores and Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS) today announced that, beginning July 30, Fred Meyer will offer Barnes & Noble’s critically acclaimed NOOK eReading devices at most Fred Meyer stores. The $139 All-New NOOK, the Simple Touch Reader™ and the $249 NOOK Color Reader’s Tablet™ and accessories arrive at Fred Meyer just in time for back-to-school shopping.

"We are thrilled to bring our award-winning NOOK products to Fred Meyer customers,” said Chris Peifer, vice president, digital business development at Barnes & Noble. "The All-New NOOK offers a simple, easy-to-use, dedicated reading experience for readers of all ages and NOOK Color is the perfect sleek, sophisticated and reading-centric tablet device.”

Barnes & Noble’s NOOK product line uses the element of touch to achieve simplicity and ease of use. The All-New NOOK features extra-long battery life on the ultra-light, portable 6-inch eReader with the most-advanced E Ink Pearl display and the most social reading experience ever – all for just $139. With a simple tap, it’s intuitive and easy to navigate, shop and read.

For customers who love to read everything in rich color, NOOK Color Reader’s Tablet features a stunning 7-inch VividView™ Color Touchscreen. Ideal for reading a wide variety of content including books, immersive children’s picture books, an expansive collection of interactive magazines, newspapers and more, The best value tablet at just $249, NOOK Color also offers the most-requested tablet features, including high-quality NOOK Apps™, built-in email, and an enhanced Web experience. With all NOOK products, customers gain access to Barnes & Noble's expansive NOOK Bookstore^™ of more than two million digital titles, and the ability to enjoy content across a wide array of popular devices.

"Our customers have always been able to find selection and value at Fred Meyer Stores, and adding Barnes & Noble’s popular NOOK product line helps us continue to provide that,” said Karen Huges, vice president of Merchandising for Fred Meyer Home Electronics, "We’re very pleased to work with Barnes & Noble to bring this award-winning product to our customers in the Pacific Northwest.”

ABOUT FRED MEYER STORES:

Fred Meyer Stores, based in Portland, Ore., offers one-stop shopping at its 132 multi-department stores in four western states. Nearly 30,000 Fred Meyer associates help customers fill their food, apparel, and general merchandise needs in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Stores range in size from 65,000 to 230,000 square feet and carry more than 200,000 products under one roof. Additionally, Fred Meyer donates more than 4 million pounds of food to food banks in its four-state market and contributes more than $4 million to communities across the Northwest each year through grants from the Fred Meyer Foundation as well as product donations, cash donations and sponsorships. Fred Meyer Stores is a division of The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR). For more information, please visit our Web site at www.fredmeyer.com.

ABOUT BARNES & NOBLE, INC.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS), the world's largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 705 bookstores in 50 states. Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, also operates 636 college bookstores serving nearly 4 million students and faculty members at colleges and universities across the United States. Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com), one of the Web's largest e-commerce sites, which also features more than two million titles in its NOOK Bookstore™ (www.bn.com/ebooks). Through Barnes & Noble’s NOOK™ eReading product offering, customers can buy and read eBooks on the widest range of platforms, including NOOK eBook Readers, devices from partner companies, and hundreds of the most popular mobile and computing devices using free NOOK software. General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company's corporate website: www.barnesandnobleinc.com.

NOOK™, NOOK Color™, NOOK Books™, and VividView™ are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

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