Unfortunately Barnes & Noble continues to underperform the book business as a whole, disclosing holiday sales in contrast to the industry trend. Sales for the nine weeks ending December 30 were $953 million, down 6.4 percent compared to the prior year, and down the same percentage on a same-store business. Book sales on their own were down 4.5 percent, consistent with the company’s report at the end of November that their non-book product was performing poorly and being curtailed. For the holiday period, “declines in the gift, music and DVD categories accounted for nearly half of the comparable store sales decrease.” […]