Google and Barnes & Noble are teaming up to challenge Amazon.

As reported by The New York Times, the two companies are now offering a same-day book delivery service to customers in Manhattan, West Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

At first blush, it seems odd. Here we have Barnes & Noble, whose core brick and mortar business model has been virtually eviscerated by the rise of e-commerce and e-books, making nice with Google, the very backbone of our now digital world. But the unlikely duo shares a common enemy.

It's been obvious for some time now that Google views Amazon as a threat. As the e-commerce giant continues to grow, customers are increasingly coming to Amazon, not Google, to search for products, a trend that could seriously undercut Google's paid-search business model in the longterm. And so, last year, Google launched Google Shopping Express, its own same-day shipping program, to compete with Amazon.

Rather than having its own warehouses like Amazon, Google Shopping sends its delivery teams to stores like Target, Walgreens, and Staples, where they then bundle the products up and deliver them to customers' doorsteps within hours. But so far, Google Shopping's offerings have been limited. By adding Barnes & Noble to its list of retailers, the search giant is going for Amazon's jugular.

>Here we have Barnes & Noble, whose core brick and mortar business model has been virtually eviscerated by the rise of e-commerce and e-books, making nice with Google, the very backbone of our now digital world.

As a result, Google is throwing the struggling Barnes & Noble a rare lifeline. The publishing industry has been a casualty of the digital age, with physical book stores, and even physical books, all but disappearing over the last decade. Barnes & Noble, one of the last remaining book store chains, has been forced to close 63 stores over the last five years, according to the Times. In partnering with Google, the company's leadership is hoping to leverage Google's pervasiveness to increase sales at its last remaining stores. "Google has their own vast customer base," Jaime Carey, chief merchandising officer at Barnes & Noble, told the Times. "They’re going to be reaching a new customer for us."

And yet, it may be tough to convince all those customers to come to Google Shopping to buy their books, instead of Amazon—primarily because Amazon still offers lower prices than pretty much anywhere else. A paperback copy of the bestseller Unbroken, for instance, costs $9.83 on Amazon. At Barnes & Noble, it's $16. And Amazon's recent clash with Hachette proves the company is willing to get even more cutthroat with its pricing.

Still, there's something to be said for Google's approach. Even as technology has birthed new industries over the last several decades, it has simultaneously destroyed others. In a world in which the digital and physical are so often adversaries, it's a hopeful sign to see Google supporting existing businesses to bolster its own.