John Hodgman Shares His Thoughts About the Demise of Borders Books

Posted on September 4, 2011

John Hodgman shared his thoughts about the demise of Borders Books with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. The very funny Hodgman is an author himself and actually loves bookstores. In fact he's been listing some of his favorite indie bookstores on Twitter.

In this clip, Hodgman does a very funny satirical piece on the end of Borders, and bookstores in general. John said that in order to compete with Amazon.com, bookstores need to get rid of all those old-fashioned bookshelves and replace them with "beautiful, well-appointed downloading pods." Customers seal themselves inside a pod, strip down to their underwear, get a slice of pizza and begin downloading books. It's like being at home, but with the inconvenience of a 20 minute car ride.

He says the stores need more excitement. They should tie authors to a chair at the stores and force them to write while customers shout out their own ideas at them. He suggests that might be one way to get George R.R. Martin to finish the Game of Thrones series faster. He then reveals his intense hatred for the bookstore employees who shelved his book in the "wrong" category. Take a look: