In April 2026, online users shared a rumor claiming a man broke into a Barnes & Noble bookstore to finish reading a book.
For example, on April 19, a Threads user posted (archived) a meme featuring what appeared to be a mug shot of a man with gray facial hair and glasses wearing a gray sweater over a collared shirt. The meme read, "Man arrested after breaking into a Barnes and Noble at midnight to finish a book he had been reading in-store for four consecutive days and needed to resolve before sleeping."
(@theandrewkclark/Threads)
Users shared the claim on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Reddit (archived), TikTok (archived) and X (archived), for example.
Some users seemed to believe the rumor about the bookstore break-in. Snopes readers also contacted us to investigate its legitimacy.
In short, this story was fictional. The meme also displayed an image edited or generated using artificial intelligence.
The fictional story originated from social media accounts for The Dude Humor Report, whose owner or owners label their content as satire and parody.
On April 18, The Dude Humor Report's accounts shared the meme on Facebook (archived) and Instagram (archived), naming the supposed suspect as 48-year-old Gary Hollis of Portland, Oregon. The Instagram post racked up hundreds of thousands of likes.
(@thedudehumorreport/Threads)
In an email to Snopes, a person associated with The Dude Humor Report, who identified themselves only as Mel, explained why this specific bit of satire might have taken off on social media:
No, nobody actually broke into a Barnes & Noble to finish a chapter, though I have to respect the commitment of whoever shared it like they personally watched it happen. I think this one took off because it *feels* true. We've all been the person reading at a café at 10:58 PM wondering if we could just… live there. It's less "viral hoax" and more "universal fantasy."
Mel also pointed to the satire labels in both the accounts' bios and posts' hashtags, and added, "If someone's still convinced it's breaking news at that point, we may need to start tagging Snopes in directly as co-authors."
This article features part of the fabricated story and a guide to how we located the truth behind it.
Gary Hollis breaks into Barnes & Noble
The Dude Humor Report's Instagram post (archived) featured a story to pair with the meme users shared. That satirical tale began as follows:
MAN ARRESTED AFTER BREAKING INTO A BARNES AND NOBLE AT MIDNIGHT TO FINISH A BOOK HE HAD BEEN READING IN-STORE FOR FOUR CONSECUTIVE DAYS AND NEEDED TO RESOLVE BEFORE SLEEPING
Gary Hollis, 48, of Portland, Oregon was charged Tuesday with breaking and entering after accessing a closed Barnes and Noble on Broadway through a propped emergency exit at 12:10 AM to finish the final 47 pages of a thriller he had been reading in the store's armchair section every afternoon for four consecutive days and could not sleep until he knew how it ended.
According to the arrest report, Hollis had located the book on day one, read it for three hours, replaced it spine-out so he could find it again, returned each subsequent afternoon, and been asked to leave at closing on day four with 47 pages remaining at a plot point he described to officers as "completely untenable to sit with overnight."
Details from the police report:
- Hollis located the book in the dark using a phone flashlight within ninety seconds
- He returned to the same armchair he had used for four days
- He had brought his own reading glasses and a granola bar
- He completed the final 47 pages in one hour and fourteen minutes
- He replaced the book correctly on the shelf
- He was found by officers sitting quietly in the armchair with the closed book in his lap and the expression of a man who had just processed something significant
The rest of the fictional story said Hollis received closure, but the thriller did not conclude as he expected.
The post ended with hashtags indicating it was humorous and satirical, including #comedy, #satire and #forentertainmentonly.
Researching the Barnes & Noble rumor
To determine the rumor's origin, we first searched for information about a man breaking into a Barnes & Noble bookstore using search engines such as Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo. Those searches located the original Instagram post (archived) from The Dude Humor Report, as well as other users' social media posts.
If a man had truly broken into a Barnes & Noble store, local news outlets or authorities likely would have reported on the incident. That was not the case, according to our searches.
The Dude Humor Report's Instagram account bio also clarifies that the page shares satirical content. It reads, "This page features satire and parody stories that are exaggerated, developing fictional — created for entertainment purposes only."
As for the meme and purported mug shot, a scan of the image with Google's SynthID Detector — a tool that can find and confirm an invisible watermark in Google AI-created images — returned the message, "Part of this image was edited or generated with Google AI."
For further reading, we previously investigated whether Barnes & Noble pulled Bibles from shelves.
Here's why Snopes investigates stories described as satire or parody.