When Ron Boire was growing up on a dairy farm in upstate New York, helping out around the property for $2 an hour, he saw new books as an out-of-reach luxury.

“We didn’t have any money, and my mother was a voracious reader,” he said. “I remember telling a friend, when I grow up, I want to be able to afford hardcover books.”

Mr. Boire, who took the helm as chief executive of Barnes & Noble in September, still seems to have a soft spot for physical books. Walking through the first floor of a Barnes & Noble store in Union Square in Manhattan recently, Mr. Boire couldn’t help himself from reflexively straightening the jagged piles of books on the display tables so that the spines lined up neatly.

Now Mr. Boire, 54, the former chief executive of Sears Canada and a retail veteran who has worked at Brookstone, Best Buy and Toys “R” Us, is under pressure to reverse the fortunes of the beleaguered bookstore chain, which has been stung in recent years by the rise of Amazon, steep losses from its Nook e-reader division and a string of store closings.