San Bruno, California

For Barnes & Noble Inc. (BKS) founder Leonard Riggio to take his bookstores private, he may need to write a check for more than the entire company’s market value.

Riggio said yesterday that he will offer to buy the retail stores and website of the New York-based company he started more than 40 years ago, leaving shareholders with Barnes & Noble’s college book and Nook e-reader businesses. The retail chain alone is worth about $1 billion, according to the average of four analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg…

(Press Release) NEW YORK, NY, Marketwire, January 18, 2011—Vook, the leading digital publisher of mixed-media reading, announced it closed $5.25 million in Series A financing from investors including VantagePoint Venture Partners and Floodgate.