Craig: Quiet, please, quiet... I'm trying to read a book! A book, child-catcher? What's a book? Well, it's a long, papery blog. [laughter]

A book... it's called The Fault in Our Stars; this book was the #1 New York Times Bestseller, and that's not easy. It's in stores now; please welcome the author of this... book, the great John Green, everybody!

[John enters; the band plays]

Craig: John! Look at that! Look, I have two, I have two copies; that's what drove it all the way to #1 on the Bestsellers. [laughter] 'Cause my copy, and Geoff's copy, and you have to sign it for us.

John: Sure, of course. Yeah, it'll be my pleasure.

Craig: Do you do the, book tours, and go around and sign all the books?

John: Oh yeah, yeah; in fact, my brother and I just played Carnegie Hall a few months ago.

Craig: Carnegie Hall! Why? [laughter]

John: Because we could?

Craig: Yeah! I've played Carnegie Hall! It's nice, but the stage is very slope-y.

John: Yeah; that doesn't bother me, though, because I was just standing still, because I... felt the terror of, you know, the 3000 eyes on you... so, yeah.

Craig: Oh, so it was Carnegie Hall with all one-eyed people, is it? [laughter] I'm not so sure about this! On John's book [?]!

John: That's really my core audience. Yeah, but... by the way, I'm concerned about your teeth, because I just had emergency dental surgery yesterday...

Craig: No!

John: Yes, and it started with a tooth... with a teeth cleaning. It really did.

Craig: I'm not going. I'm not going.

John: I don't... I don't recommend it; they say every six months, but then, what if there's an emergency dental surgery? The day before you're supposed to be on television?

Craig: It's not really television, but... [gibberish]. What happened? An abscess, or something?

John: Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Craig: Ahh! That's the worst type!

John: Oh, it was truly, truly terrifying! And then I spent the whole day at the... like 8:30 to 4:30... the whole day at the dentist.

Craig: Did you know it was coming... I guess, the boogeyman [?]... but how did you know that it was coming?

John: I did have a... I had a little bit of a twinge - Do you have a twinge at all?

Craig: A little bit. Not in my mouth, but... [laughter] A little bit... I do have a...

John: Michelle Monaghan was beautiful...

Craig: Very beautiful; she's very beautiful...

John: It was... yeah, just a little bit of a twinge, and I went in and they were just doing a cleaning, and they were like, "oh... uh-oh. Oh boy, get out the x-rays!" And then it just went south from there.

Craig: Was it a long time since your last cleaning?

John: Six months. Every six months.

Craig: See, I haven't been for longer, it's been almost a year since...

John: I'm concerned.

Craig: Yeah, me too. You've really steered me in a really frightening direction, John. I'm very worried, indeed! Do you do this all the time, you create scenarios which are worrying? I mean, that's a writer's idea, but...

John: Yeah, you're a novelist, you know how it...

Craig: I've written one novel; I don't know if that makes me a novelist.

John: That makes you a novelist!

Craig: Really? I think I'm a guy who wrote a novel.

John: But we are professional worriers; you're constantly imagining things that could go wrong, and then writing about it.

Craig: All the time. All the time. Until I did this show, and then it all went wrong, and I'm like, "Eh..." [laughter] Do you... are you an anxious, nervous person?

John: Um... no. Yes, of course, yes, profoundly. Terribly, terribly...

Craig: Does it manifest itself in any kind of weird behaviors? Are you OCD, or... not that that's weird, oh dear... you know what I mean? I'm not...

John: I'm steering clear of that whole thing. I do this a whole [pulls ring off and on finger]. I don't know; that's not super-nervous.

Craig: That might make your wife a little nervous.

John: Yeah, um, no. I... mostly manifests itself internally, in thinking about all the things that could happen. But that's what writing is... ultimately is; you're thinking of seven... seven thousand different things that could happen, and you... pick one.

Craig: Here's a thought. I've heard this said recently, that people are not as literate as they once were, because of the Twitter and the way that, you know, information and literature is received. Do you think that has any... there's any validity in that, any verisimilitude? [laughter] In that statement? Please, I'm not sure... I said the right word.

John: Yeah... um... no. My Twitter bio says that "I write books, which are like tweets, but longer". I mean, reading Twitter is reading; it's very different from reading a novel, but you're still reading. And, in fact, I would argue that in many cases, we read more because we're reading so many tweets, and Tumblr posts.

Craig: But is more better? I mean, you know, Oscar Wilde, famous for the epigrammatic form, would have been happy on Twitter, but he still would have written, you know, other stuff.

John: But it's nice, and the truth is, there's till a lot of people who read books, and there's a lot of books being read. So I'm not... I'm not as worried about it as a lot of people are, because I see readers, and I see particularly young readers, you know, people in high schools and college, who are choosing to read a book.

Craig: That's why I became a Gryffindor. Because, because... hey, hey! Ten points off, Hufflepuff! [laughter]

John: As a Hufflepuff, I am...

Craig: You're not a Hufflepuff!

John: I am! I was sorted by the Sorting Hat, in Pottermore. I'm a hundred percent Hufflepuff! Yes!

Craig: I'm so sorry!

John: I wear it with great pride! We're badgers! Are you kidding? I mean, we're ferocious, and we're excellent Finders!

Craig: Okay! All right, Hufflepuff! Do you want to know something? I've actually got a Quidditch shirt with Potter written on the back... yeah I do.

John: That's pretty awesome.

Craig: I wear it around the house; I'm like, "Yeeaaaah!" Are you a fan of... 'cause, I think J. K. Rowling did a lot to bring young reader people back into the... are you a fan of...

John: Yeah, I'm a huge fan! I love the Harry Potter books. I go to a lot of Harry Potter conferences, because my brother is what's called a wizard rocker; he makes songs about... he writes songs about Harry Potter. Which is, a genre.

Craig: You know, Michelle Monaghan's dad would have loved you for that! [laughter]

John: It's true.

Craig: But I'm very pleased that... we're actually out of time, which I find devastating, 'cause I could actually talk to you for a bit... let's read a bit from your book! Yeah, no, come on, I'm serious!

John: All right.

Craig: Yeah, they'll be all right. You'll be all right!

John: Geoff, you want to read any?

Craig: Yeah, you want to read any, Geoff?

John: I'll read along. [laughter]

Craig: All right, I'll read a bit, and... it's very good, I have to say, very, very good. [laughter]

John: It's funny, but it's also moving.

Craig: That's... see, that's what books should be like. You know, you should be like, "aha... oh."

John: Yeah, yeah.

Craig: Hey, yeah, I was going to talk to you a little bit, though, about this, on the... cover on the...

John: The author photo?

Craig: Yeah, yeah.

John: You're not happy with it?

Craig: Well, your body language says, "I'm ashamed of my genitals." [laughter] And I'm like, you know, you're an award-winning star author, man. You should just be like, "Hey!"

John: I will make you a promise today; when my next book comes out, different author photo, just front and center. [laughter]

Craig: It'll do even better. John Green, everybody!



[If you're watching Craig at home, you're missing half the fun! Consider this your formal invitation to laugh live in our studio audience at a taping of the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Please give us a call at 323-570-0059, or visit our website at llstickets.com.]

[song] What did we learn on the show tonight, Craig? [horse neighing]

Craig: Well, who should do the apologizing to Tone Bell, who's the comedian who should have been on tonight, but somebody wanted to talk about their book a little too long! [laughter] Tone was waiting to do stand-up comedy but somebody wanted to talk about his book!

No, it's my fault; Tone will be back at a later date. But... did you have a good time?

John: I did; he's funny too, I just hung out with him backstage; he's hilarious.

Craig: Yeah, he's not going to like you much now. No. Anyway, Geoff and I were wondering if you'd sign our books.

John: That would of course be my pleasure.

Craig: All right; could you make this out to eBay?

John: Yup. [Laughter]

Craig: Hey! It's my grandmother's name; eBay... eBay McCaffertay.

John: More of a pet name?

Craig: No, I think Mr. Squiggles is more of a pet name. Oh, you made it out to eBay!

John: Yeah, I made it out to eBay.

Craig: I have a great idea! What we'll do is, you send us a tweet, using the computer... haha... take that, kids! And the best, humorous tweet will win John's book, which has been signed to eBay. Then you'll be able to sell it; it's a win-win! [laughter]

John: This one... I am going to sign this one for Geoff, though.

Craig: Yeah, sign that for Geoff. Please spell him right; people get all kind of...

John: No, I would never mess that up; I'm a huge Geoff fan. Long-time.

Craig: Really?

John: Oh yeah. He's by far - I mean, no, he's my favorite.

Geoff: Did you hear that? Yeah. What was that? What was that?

John: I'm just a huge fan!

Geoff: Oh yeah, I like that.

John: I mean, you're... good-looking.

Geoff: You're a good guy!

John: Thanks, man.

Craig: And while they continued their inane prattle about how much they love each other, little do they know that I am going offstage to dress up as my mother. I shall then return and offer to give them a shower... of blood. [laughter] I won't really do that; don't be afraid. [dramatic music]

Geoff: Wow, I thought we were going out on that. [laughter]

Craig: You know, we could have let the comedian actually do his act if we weren't here so damn long. Come on over, come on over. Have you actually met Secretariat?

John: Not in person.

Craig: All right man, all right. I... you know, we're all big fans of John here, and we're all pretty excited to see him, then it turns out Geoff's his favorite. [laughter] So me and Secretariat are going to be the crappo.

But seriously, if you haven't read this book then... what's wrong with you? Good night, everybody!