James Daunt's favorite book is Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, though the Barnes & Noble CEO has never finished it. Before he ran Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, and his own Daunt Books chain, he worked as a purser for Carnival Cruise Lines and later as an investment banker at JPMorgan. Since becoming CEO of Barnes & Noble in 2019, Daunt has focused on shifting power away from headquarters and into the hands of frontline employees. "I had been a bookseller for 30 years at this point," Daunt told Fortune's Phil Wahba for Behind the Business. In 2010, Daunt Books Publishing was founded to produce lost classics and titles inspired by the bookshop specifically.