barnesandnoble.com APIbarnesandnoble.com ↗
Search Barnes & Noble's catalog, retrieve book metadata, pricing, customer ratings, and bestseller lists via a structured REST API.
curl -X GET 'https://api.parse.bot/scraper/ac7378c9-f1a3-4869-a348-81a2bfc2e2c8/search_books?page=1&limit=3&query=The+Great+Gatsby' \ -H 'X-API-Key: $PARSE_API_KEY'
Search for books by keyword, title, author, or ISBN. Returns paginated results from the Barnes & Noble catalog.
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| page | integer | Page number to retrieve. |
| limit | integer | Number of results per page. |
| queryrequired | string | Search keyword, title, author, or ISBN. |
{
"type": "object",
"fields": {
"page": "string, current page number",
"books": "array of objects with title, author, ean, price, url",
"query": "string, the search query submitted"
},
"sample": {
"data": {
"page": "1",
"books": [
{
"ean": "9780743273565",
"url": "https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-great-gatsby-f-scott-fitzgerald/1116668135?ean=9780743273565",
"price": "$17.00",
"title": "The Great Gatsby",
"author": "F. Scott Fitzgerald"
}
],
"query": "The Great Gatsby"
},
"status": "success"
}
}About the barnesandnoble.com API
The Barnes & Noble API covers 5 endpoints for accessing book data from barnesandnoble.com, including search, detailed metadata, customer review summaries, bestseller listings, and category browsing. The get_book_details endpoint returns fields like synopsis, publisher, page count, product dimensions, and current price for any title identified by its 13-digit EAN/ISBN-13. Whether you need a single title's metadata or a paginated category browse, each endpoint returns structured JSON ready for downstream use.
Search and Catalog Access
The search_books endpoint accepts a query string — keyword, title, author, or ISBN — and returns paginated results with title, author, ean, price, and url for each matching book. Pagination is controlled via page and limit parameters. The ean values returned here are the primary key used across all other endpoints.
Book Metadata and Details
get_book_details takes a single ean (13-digit ISBN) and returns a full metadata object: title, author, synopsis, price, and a details sub-object containing structured fields such as ISBN-13, Publisher, Publication date, Pages, and Product dimensions. This endpoint is the right choice when you need bibliographic data beyond what search results expose.
Ratings, Bestsellers, and Category Browse
get_book_reviews returns the Bazaarvoice-sourced rating (average out of 5) and count (total review volume) for a given EAN — useful for ranking or filtering titles by community reception. get_bestsellers requires no parameters and returns the current B&N bestseller list with price and URL. browse_category accepts a category_id (e.g. 2uo8 for Fiction) and optional category_name slug, returning a paginated list of books in that category. Category IDs follow Barnes & Noble's own taxonomy.
- Build a book price tracker by polling
get_book_detailsfor price changes on a watchlist of EANs. - Populate a reading recommendation engine using bestseller data from
get_bestsellerscombined with category browse. - Aggregate bibliographic metadata (publisher, page count, publication date) for a library catalog tool.
- Compare Barnes & Noble pricing against other retailers by extracting
pricefields from search results. - Filter titles by average customer rating using
get_book_reviewsto surface highly rated books within a category. - Index a genre-specific book database by iterating
browse_categorywith Fiction, Mystery, or other category IDs. - Monitor new releases by querying
search_booksby author name and comparing EANs against a known set.
| Tier | Price | Credits/month | Rate limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | 100 | 5 req/min |
| Hobby | $30/mo | 1,000 | 20 req/min |
| Developer | $100/mo | 5,000 | 250 req/min |
One credit = one API call regardless of which marketplace API you call. Exceeding the rate limit returns a 429 response. Authenticate with the X-API-Key header.
Does Barnes & Noble offer an official developer API?+
What does `get_book_reviews` actually return — individual review text or just aggregate stats?+
rating (average out of 5, or null if no ratings exist) and count (total number of reviews). Individual review text, reviewer names, and per-review dates are not included. The API covers the summary data surfaced by Bazaarvoice for that EAN. You can fork the API on Parse and revise it to add an endpoint returning individual review content.Are eBook or NOOK edition prices included alongside print editions?+
price field per EAN. Separate EANs exist for different formats (hardcover, paperback, NOOK), so format-specific pricing requires querying each EAN individually. There is no endpoint that aggregates all formats for a title in one call. You can fork the API on Parse and revise it to add multi-format aggregation.How does pagination work for `search_books` and `browse_category`?+
search_books exposes page and limit as optional integer parameters; the response echoes back the current page value. browse_category similarly accepts a page parameter. Neither endpoint returns a total result count or a flag indicating the last page, so you would need to stop iterating when an empty books array is returned.Can I retrieve a book's full review history, including star-rating breakdowns or verified purchase flags?+
get_book_reviews. Breakdowns by star rating, verified purchase status, and review timestamps are not exposed. You can fork the API on Parse and revise it to add the missing endpoint.