Reuters - Barnes & Noble Inc, cut its full-year sales forecast on Thursday, blaming a troubled U.S. economy, sending the shares of the largest U.S. specialty bookseller down more than 3 percent.

AP - Barnes & Noble Inc., the nation's largest bookseller, posted a 15 percent drop in second-quarter profit Thursday as it struggles with sluggish consumer spending.

AP - "The First Billion Is the Hardest" (Crown Business. 252 pages. $26.95), by T. Boone Pickens: T. Boone Pickens deals in big figures. Very big. He quotes Forbes Magazine as pegging his worth at $3 billion in 2007, when he was 79.