Remote Surveillance Trailer in Turlock, CA

A Barnes & Noble bookstore is slated to open in Turlock in May of 2026, filling a vacancy for city bibliophiles that has existed since Lightly Used Books closed its doors in March.

The new store will be located at 2693 Countryside Dr. — the former Forever 21 location — in the Monte Vista Crossing shopping center.

Turlock used to be home to a Borders bookstore, until that chain declared bankruptcy in 2011.

Barnes & Noble has a location in Modesto, and had one in Merced until 2024. Shortly before the pandemic, Barnes & Noble seemed destined for a fate similar to Borders, as online giant Amazon grew to dominate the bookselling business.

According to a report in Forbes magazine, Barnes & Noble reported a loss of $125 million on revenue of $3.7 billion for the 2018 fiscal year, and lost more than $1 billion in market value since 2014.

Elliott Advisors purchased the ailing company for nearly $700 million, and added it to a portfolio that included U.K.-based bookstore chain Waterstones.

The Barnes & Noble reins, according to Forbes, were handed to Waterstones CEO James Daunt, who nursed Barnes & Noble back to health and opened more than 60 new stores this year, with plans to open the same number in 2026.

“The reason Barnes & Noble has rebounded from a very difficult period in just a few years has to do with James Daunt,” Bradley Graham, co-owner of Politics and Prose bookstores in Washington, D.C., told the Wall Street Journal. “He came with a philosophy of letting bookstores reflect their local communities.”

Rather than dictating what and how to sell, Daunt relies on the local team.

“It’s about how you take all of this huge number of books and arrange them and display them in a manner which really engages with your local community,” he said in an interview with PBS News. “The insight that gives me in terms of running lots of bookstores is leave it to the teams in each store. The vast majority of them will do it exceptionally well, and your stores will become better and busier, and the business will thrive.”

Bookstore sales in the U.S. declined 8 percent during the previous five years, from $8.6 billion in 2019 to $7.9 billion in 2024, according to the Census Bureau’s annual retail trade survey.

But there’s good news, too.

According to one recent survey, 65 percent prefer physical books, compared to 21 percent who favor e-books and 14 percent who opt for audiobooks. The survey also found that 70 percent of the youngest readers (ages 16-24) prefer physical books.

“If you buy Percival Everett’s ‘James’ from Amazon, it’s the same (book) I will sell you,” Daunt said. “But if you come into this store to buy it, you will have an experience. And when you walk out of the store with it in your bag, it will lift you. It’s the same book, but I promise you it’s a better book and the reading of it will be more pleasurable because you bought it in a bookstore.”

The Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office is asking for public input as a convicted sexually violent predator could be released into a Turlock neighborhood.

The court is now accepting public comment as prosecutors continue to oppose this placement.

Some people say they've been fighting this for more than a year.

"I can't believe it," Erica Farmer said, a Turlock resident. "I honestly can't, I don't understand."

"He is a sexually violent predator," Farmer continued. "He's done it 50 times, and you think he's not going to do it again. It's going to happen, whether it's my children or somebody else's."

For over a year, she's been fighting the placement of sexual violent predator Kevin Gray next door.

In 1993, Gray was convicted in Stanislaus County and sentenced to 18 years in prison, admitting to sexually abusing more than 50 children over a thousand times.

"He has impulse control issues," said Wendell Emerson with the Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office.

In 2024, the district attorney's office opposed that Turlock placement.

"The lower court agreed with us, but the fed's attorney and the attorney general's office appealed that order, and they ultimately won," Emerson said.

But after the California Supreme Court overturned that ruling, the placement is moving forward.

"That was just very strange and shocking to us, and immediately wanted to hit the ground running with not letting this happen next door to my children and my family," Farmer said.

The court is now accepting public comment as prosecutors argue it puts children at risk.

"It is very important that we get that public input so we can share that with the judge and with the Department of State Hospitals," Emerson said.

"Put in your comments, and just fight the fight with us," Farmer said.

Community members have until Dec.19th to submit those comments.

The district attorney's office said they've already received about one thousand, but need more.

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