Waldenbooks, operated by the Walden Book Company, Inc., was an American shopping mall-based bookstore chain, from 1995 as a subsidiary of Borders Group. The chain also ran a video game and software chain under the name Waldensoftware, as well as a children's educational toy chain under Walden Kids. In 2011, the chain was liquidated in bankruptcy. History On March 4, 1933, Lawrence Hoyt (1902–1982), a former sales manager for Simon & Schuster, and Melvin T. Kafka (1905–1992) opened a rental library within leased space inside a Bridgeport, Connecticut, department store under the name Walden Book Company. The pair believed that their business would help people cope with the effects of The Great Depression. Books were lent out for three cents per day to save customers the cost of purchasing the books while providing affordable entertainment. By 1948, Hoyt and Kafka had opened 250 book rental locations. Hoyt opened the first Walden bookstore in Pittsburgh in 1962. Within 15 years, the company had grown to over 250 locations in leased locations within various department stores. With the increased availability of low-cost paperbacks after the Second World War, rental library services were eventually replaced with retail book selling. Acquisitions By the 1970s, the company had sales of just under $200 million. In 1969, it was purchased by the Broadway Hale Stores, a California-based department-stores holding company that was later renamed Carter Hawley Hale in 1974. For the stand-alone bookstores, the company initially traded under the name Walden Books, written as two words. During the 1970s, the company gradually changed its trade name to Waldenbooks, written as a single word. In 1984, Waldenbooks acquired three stores that were located in upscale neighborhoods from the bankrupted Brentano's chain with the original intent of converting the stores to the Waldenbooks brand, However, Waldenbooks discovered that when they continued to operate the newly acquired stores as Brentano's, the new stores were generating more sales than equivalent Waldenbooks, so Waldenbooks decided to continue and expand the Brentano's brand in selected upscale neighborhoods. In 1984, Waldenbooks itself was acquired by Kmart after Carter Hawley Hales needed to get cash to defend itself from a hostile takeover attempt. At that time, Waldenbooks was the largest retail bookstore chain. Under Kmart's ownership, Walden attempted to expand and diversify its business. In 1985, it opened a discount book outlet chain called Reader's Market by converting five existing stand-alone Waldenbooks stores. A