How book stores can compete against Amazon: John Hodgman suggests ‘downloading pods’

Amazon.com continues to grab market share from traditional book stores, and just last month Border’s bit the dust. But resident expert John Hodgman — appearing Tuesday night on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart — offers some sage advice on how brick-and-mortar bookstores can actually compete.

For one, he suggests getting rid of the “old-fashioned” book shelves, replacing them with “beautiful, well-appointed downloading pods.”

“Book lovers simply seal themselves inside, strip down to their underwear, pick up a cold slice of pizza and start downloading the great works of literature in between bouts of masturbation and YouTube,” he said. “It is all the fun and isolation of home, with the inconvenience of a 20-minute car ride.”

Hodgman continued with a hilarious rant on book store employees. “These are the type of people who used to work at video stores, before they went under…. If book stores fall, Jon, America will be inundated with a wandering, snarky underclass of unemployable purveyors of useless and arcane esoterica.”

Here are some of Hodgman’s other suggestions, including hosting “in-store writings” by authors and turning Borders into a “book store” preserve in the style of colonial Williamsburg.