The nation’s largest bookselling chain, Barnes & Noble, managed to outperform its competitors in the fiscal quarter, showing an increase of 1.4% in comparable store sales at its superstores. For the second quarter, the company reported total sales from its bookstores unit of $1.015 billion. Of that, Barnes & Nobles stores accounted for $961.3 million, up 5% overall. Its declining mall-based unit, B. Dalton, posted sales of $39.9 million, with a comparable store decrease of 6.8%.

Business was more challenging at the now wholly-owned BarnesandNoble.com unit, where quarterly sales fell 6% to $84.5 million. The loss of $7.6 million was at the high end of the company’s guidance.

Barnes & Noble reports profits a number of ways, complicated further by a one-time charge related to a recent bond redemption. But the message to Wall Street was that profits after the charge of $8.9 million beat expectations leaving aside the redemption, even though the adjusted total was lower than last year.

CEO Steve Riggio noted in a statement, “We attribute the buoyancy in book sales to the release of a few titles that received major media coverage, most notably President Clinton’s memoir, ‘My Life.'”

President Clinton’s book was the fastest selling nonfiction book in history, with sales of over 250,000 copies. The company predicts third quarter comparable store sales will rise 1% to 2%

Meanwhile, online bookselling leader Amazon announced its purchase of 4-year-old Chinese online retailerJoyo.com, said to be the “largest online retailers of books, music and videos in China.”

The transaction is valued at $72 million in cash and $3 million in the assumption of employee stock options. Amazon was recently rebuffed in an attempt to acquire a stake in another Chinese online merchant,DangDang.com.

A Chinese official indicated earlier this week that the government plans on opening the bookstore and book distribution businesses completely to foreign investment and ownership.