“"He had a genius for selling books," said Jane Friedman, chief executive of digital publisher Open Road Integrated Media Inc., who first met Mr. Riggio in the mid-1960s when he owned the Student Book Exchange bookshop in Manhattan. "That's what distinguished him. His life was books. He believed in the word." These days, Mr. Riggio said, he tends to focus on the parts of the company that "may seem small to other people." What he still enjoys, he said, is getting "involved in copy, in little details of graphic language. I'm not a meddler. People will come and say, 'Len, what do you think of this or that?' I'm a creative soul. I like doing that. I like creating."”
