There is still scope for Waterstone's to go further down the Barnes and Noble road.
The judges, chaired by Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, looked at authors nominated by children online and in Waterstone's bookshops.
Other bookstores, such as Ottakers and the American-owned Borders, have been replicating and stretching the Waterstone's formula with greater success.
Lord Stevenson, who presided as chairman of HBOS throughout its 8-year existence, is currently a non-executive director at the bookseller Waterstone's.
Lord Stevenson, who presided as chairman of HBOS throughout its eight-year existence, is currently a non-executive director at the bookseller Waterstone's.
With others copying the Waterstone's formula, there is also a lot of overcapacity in the bookshop market, which has squeezed profits.
This is the logical extension of the founding vision of Tim Waterstone.
Take Waterstone's in Piccadilly, London, which claims to be Europe's largest bookshop.
"There is a tremendous opportunity to re-energise a wonderful brand and to re-establish Waterstone's at the hub of the UK book world, " he said.
The Guardian has reported that if customers bought a title using Waterstone's in-store wi-fi the UK group would "get a cut" of the sale.
While the looters had cleared out the stock of Currys, Claire's Accessories and Phones4U, nearby Waterstone's had been left "without a scratch", she says.
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Like-for-like sales at Waterstone's fell by 3.8% over the same period.
Amazon said this week that it was selling more e-books in the UK than hardbacks, underlining the pressure on High Street book chains such as Waterstone's.
In the 17 weeks to 30 April, like-for-like sales at HMV stores in the UK and Irish Republic fell 15.1%, and were down 8.4% at Waterstone's.
Indeed, Barnes and Noble is often referred to as the perfect partner for Waterstone's, and has been expected to make a bid for the group in the past few years.
But surely no amount of creative marketing will stop the dust gathering on at least some of those 1.5m books at Waterstone's in Piccadilly when another pile, nearly as high, can be found around the corner.
And the indications here are not especially encouraging: the average 15-year-old boy spends four times as long playing computer games as reading, and almost half of fathers have ever read to their children, according to a survey published on Wednesday by Waterstone's.
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