Leonard Riggio, 83, Dies; Founded Barnes & Noble and Upended Publishing

Leonard Riggio, the brash, charismatic and literary-minded businessman who, in founding the giant Barnes & Noble retail chain, transformed the business of selling books as thoroughly as the rise of the paperback once did — and who was cast as both a hero and a villain for doing so — died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 83.

His death, from Alzheimer’s disease, was announced by his family.

Mr. Riggio, a son of a cabdriver, was just 30 in 1971 when he bought a fusty half-century-old bookstore in Lower Manhattan called Barnes & Noble and began turning it into a literary behemoth. Within decades, it was the largest bookseller in the United States, with hundreds of superstores, many of them in places that had formerly been book deserts, like malls.