Barnes & Noble Booksellers

As much as a love Amazon, sometimes you just want a real bookstore. This B&N is pretty quality. They have a good selection of magazines, including many foreign editions and news magazines in Spanish. They also have a relatively large selection of novels and other books in Spanish. There’s a large selection of text prep books, probably due to all the students in the area. You can occasionally snag a nice seat near the windows overlooking Huntington Avenue and peruse some books. My only complaint about B&N is that they constantly ask you if you want to join their membership program. Um, maybe it was free, but I don’t purchase enough stuff here to make it worthwhile. I hate having to have the awkward no I am not interested in your membership program every single time I buy something here.

Do not go here if you are looking for a dog friendly environment. Most Back Bay stores are very pet friendly but not this one.

This Barns and Noble is wonderful! Specifically, I went to the Barns and Noble café that serves Starbucks. Everyone was extremely kind, wifi was fast, my quiche was delicious, and they even brought my food to me which was a little but kind gesture that made my experience there great. Everything was clean and well run. I’ll be coming back next time I’m visiting Boston!

This is a decent size B&N with a great selection. The staff aren’t very helpful and are hard to find when you need them. Prices are usually what’s on the cover, which is way more than online — but you’re paying for convenience and a physical location to lounge around. There aren’t many areas to sit other than the coffee area, which kind of stinks, but it’s Boston. The Starbucks inside does NOT accept the SB gift cards, which is a dock on stars.

The store is fine, and I generally enjoy browsing here on occasion. Last Saturday however, I stopped in to have a look after having walked by the Food Court – which seemed to be in the process of being walled-​up. I was curious about this and approached the Customer Service desk, assuming that as employees of a store in the same mall as the food court they would know what was up with the totally unexpected (to me) construction.
I encountered an older woman with white hair who had her hair styled in a fashion that reminded me of a cockatoo. I said to her «Gee, what’s going on with th food court? Is it closing?» She scowled at me and said nothing simply shaking her head in the affirmative while continuing to glare at me.
I stared back at her for a bit in semi-​disbelief, before saying «Gee, thanks for your help.» She muttered something unintelligible at me and then started talking to another person.
I would expect this kind of treatment from a teenager working behind the counter at Dairy Queen perhaps, but this woman is stationed at the Customer Service desk of this bookstore. And yet she doesn’t seem to grasp the meaning of either word in «customer service.»

This place can be filled with Emerson College students, makes me feel like a college student once again LoL. They have good selection of books but don’t expect this place to be the usual large B&N bookstores, this is a small version of that. Before you buy a leisure book, unless you want it to be in your hands the same day, check with Amazon first because sometimes they have better deals in Amazon like the «The Last Unicorn» book that i checked and for almost the same price, Amazon has the book in hard cover, much better than the soft cover version being sold at B&N, but again, it depends if you are willing to wait for shipping or you want the book asap. This bookstore has a couple of seats where you could sit, relax a little bit, and read.

Up until now, I have had positive experiences with this bookstore (which is why they are being given a generous 2 stars). It is a good bookstore, until you have a problem or actually need something special. Then it turns into a nightmare and you realize how incompetent the store actually is.
I purchased a book online and decided to return it. So, I brought the book and its receipt to the desk. The receipt clearly stated that «you can return to your local Barnes and Noble store.» Instead, they flatly refused to take it back, saying that they didn’t carry that book and «you should go to the Coop in Harvard Square.» Now, if you are familiar with riding the T during rush hour, you know how much of a hassle that is. I took my heavy book onto the T and 45 minutes later, arrived at the Coop. The Harvard employees looked at me like I was absolutely crazy because the book wasn’t even purchased there. They asked why I would return it at a completely different bookstore. To their credit though, they called the Prudential Barnes and Noble and spoke to them about sending customers to them when they knew they couldn’t help. Then the B&N person said, «Oh, well, we could have packaged it up for her and shipped it.» THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU??? I am SO mad. I don’t have time to be traveling all around the city with heavy objects because you are lazy. The Harvard employees felt so bad for me that they agreed to send it to the warehouse free of charge for me. Thank God for those people. I am still cursing the idiot B&N employees though.
So, my advice: do not order anything online that you aren’t sure about. Or just get it from Amazon.

Great B&N. Big. Lots of selection of books, DVDs/​Blue Ray discs. Has a café, a kids play area, kids toys, and the whole store is laid out very neatly. Very clean. Staff is helpful if you need help finding a book or whatever. Be aware that you are in a book store (which are always more expensive than buying stuff online via Amazon, ebay, etc.). I like to just come in and sit in the café. It’s a great place to just read or hangout.

I was surprised at how large this
Barnes and Noble really is …
after entering via the Prudential Mall.
They have a huge selection of books,
along with office supplies, calendar gifts
and pop culture toys of every kind.
The deal: grab a book and then some
coffee and snacks at the B&N Café inside!

I really enjoy this bookstore. It has a Starbucks, a good travel section, magazines, and especially the children’s section. My son and I go there quite often. The only thing I will say is the bathroom is a horror show. I would rather hang out in the Copley library bathroom located in the basement. It seems to be that a man eats mass quantities of Indian food and washes it down with laxatives and somehow completely misses the toilet. Other than this complete lack of respect from this poor, poor janitor, I like it.

A really nice B&N, a bit of a strange layout — but you make do with the space available. Place is pretty big.
I was looking for the latest titles by John McPhee and could not find the appropriate section and so went to ask for help at the Information Desk. The lady at the desk who helped me promptly and politely greeted me, asked me to hold for a second while she fielded several phone calls and asked them to all hold. Then I asked my question — she looked up McPhee, walked me over to the section — all the while now fielding questions from the folks on hold on a portable phone.
She was very thorough with each person and just cranked through everything — an efficient and thorough multi-​tasker methinks! They did not have the title I was looking for — but I find a couple of humor books missing from my Calvin & Hobbes collection and my Dilbert collection.

Extremely friendly staff and great selection of books and book-​lover gifts. I had been searching for a book at several other locations and finally found it here! Oh yes, and the Christmas card selection was great and the price was reasonable.
Beware though «800 Boylston St.» is not actually on Boylston St. – it took me a while to figure out that the B&N bookstore in the mall area was the same place as the address listed. A little confusion, but worth the find.