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(This episode originally aired in March 2020.)\nThe 1998 romantic comedy You\u2019ve Got Mail, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, is about the brutal fight between a beloved indie bookstore, the Shop Around the Corner, and Fox Books, an obvious Barnes & Noble stand-in. On this episode of Decoder Ring we revisit the real-life conflict that inspired the movie and displaced independent booksellers on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. This conflict illustrates how, for a brief time, Barnes & Noble was a symbol of predatory capitalism, only to be usurped by the uniting force at the heart of the film: the internet.\nSome of the voices in this episode include Delia Ephron, the co-screenwriter of You\u2019ve Got Mail, the illustrator Brian Selznick, Laura J. Miller, author of Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption, Joel Fram, founder of Eeyore\u2019s Books for Children, and Boris Kachka, book editor for the Los Angeles Times.\n\nThis podcast was written by Willa Paskin and produced by Benjamin Frisch and Cleo Levin was research assistant.\xa0\n\nThanks to Steve Geck, Maris Kreizman, Emma Straub, Jacob Bernstein, Gary Hoover, Peter Glassman and June Thomas.\xa0\n\nDecoder Ring is produced by Willa Paskin and Katie Shepherd. Derek John is Slate\u2019s Executive Producer of Narrative Podcasts. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.\n\nIf you haven\u2019t please yet, subscribe and rate our feed in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And even better, tell your friends.\n\nIf you\u2019re a fan of the show and want to support us, consider signing up for Slate Plus.\n\xa0\nSlate Plus members get to listen to Decoder Ring without any ads. Their support is also crucial to our work. So please go to Slate.com/decoderplus to join Slate Plus today.\n\n\nSponsored by Saks.com. Check out the Holiday Gift Guide on\xa0saks.com\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices