Decent Holiday for Borders, As Books Rise More — And Private Equity Groups are on the Prowl Our traditional rule of thumb is that when Borders manages to match Barnes & Noble’s performance in a given time period, the No. 2 chain is doing about as well as they can. Which means Borders had a good holiday period, reporting a quarter-to-date same-store sales increase of 2.2 percent at their domestic superstores, or $800.5 million in all. For publishers the news is even better, as book sales alone rose 6 percent compared to a year, while music sales continue to fall. […]