It seemed grim enough when Barnes & Noble’s stock fell 4.5 percent before they announced fiscal second quarter earnings after the close of the market Thursday and then dropped another 12 percent in after-hours trading when they failed to meet investors modest expectations. A tone-deaf planted piece in Friday’s NYT didn’t help, as new ceo Ronald Boire tried to pitch BN as some kind of broader “lifestyle brand” — and in the first hour of regular trading Friday morning BN shares declined over 20 percent, falling $2.50 a share to about $9.55 a share. (For perspective, right after spinning off BN College as a […]