Barnes & Noble Exclusive: J. Ralph's Exciting Soundtrack CD to New Thriller Lucky Number Slevin; Available Only at Barnes & Noble Stores and on Barnes & Noble.com Starting March 28

Business Wire, March 20, 2006

NEW YORK -- Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS), the world's largest bookseller, today announced that composer and musician J. Ralph's soundtrack for Lucky Number Slevin, one of the year's most exciting new movies, will be offered exclusively in Barnes & Noble stores and online at Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com). The exclusive CD will be available starting March 28. The Weinstein Company film, Lucky Number Slevin, will be released theatrically by MGM on April 7, and stars Bruce Willis, Ben Kingsley, Morgan Freeman, Josh Hartnett, Stanley Tucci and Lucy Liu.

Lucky Number Slevin is a thriller that twists and turns its way through an underworld of crime and revenge. Set in New York City, a case of mistaken identity lands Slevin (Hartnett) into the middle of a war being plotted by two of the city's rival crime bosses: The Rabbi (Kingsley) and The Boss (Freeman). Slevin is under constant surveillance by relentless Detective Brikowski (Tucci) as well as the infamous assassin Goodkat (Willis) and finds himself having to hatch his own ingenious plot to escape the maze alive. The film, written by Jason Smilovic and directed by Paul McGuigan, has already opened abroad and is a popular success.

Lucky Number Slevin is the second release on Rumor Mill Records which composer/musician J. Ralph formed in 2005. It follows on the heels of The Illusionary Movements of Geraldine and Nazu, an album of orchestral music, also released as a Barnes & Noble exclusive, and featuring "One Million Miles Away," the theme to the famous Volkswagen "Wedding" commercial. J. Ralph is the first composer ever to earn two consecutive AICP inductions into the Museum of Modern Art's Permanent Archive of Film and Video. He was recently hailed by Esquire magazine as "one of the best and brightest" in their "Genius" issue.

About Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world's largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 799 bookstores in 50 states. For the fourth year in a row, the company is the nation's top retail brand for quality, according to the EquiTrend(R) Brand Study by Harris Interactive(R). Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com), one of the Web's largest e-commerce sites and the number one online bookseller for quality among e-commerce companies, according to the latest EquiTrend survey.

General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company's corporate Web site: http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com.