Book-It '10! Book #61
The Fifty Books Challenge, year two! This was a library request.
Title: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race by Jon Stewart
Details: Copyright 2010, Pentagram Books
Synopsis (By Way of Book's Website): "The eagerly awaited new book from the Emmy-winning, Oscar-hosting, Daily Show-anchoring Jon Stewart--the man behind the megaseller America (The Book). Where do we come from? Who created us? Why are we here? These questions have puzzled us since the dawn of time, but when it became apparent to Jon Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show that the world was about to end, they embarked on a massive mission to write a book that summed up the human race: What we looked like; what we accomplished; our achievements in society, government, religion, science and culture -- all in a tome of approximately 256 pages with lots of color photos, graphs and charts.
After two weeks of hard work, they had their book. EARTH (The Book) is the definitive guide to our species. With their trademark wit, irreverence, and intelligence, Stewart and his team will posthumously answer all of life's most hard-hitting questions, completely unburdened by objectivity, journalistic integrity, or even accuracy."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I am a frothing TDS fan and will buy/consume/read just about anything related to the show.
How I Liked It: This is definitely more "lad"-centered than America: The Book (despite having more female writing staff members, disproving any number of fauxminist axe-grinders even more wrong), with the boob jokes wearing thin by the middle of the book. The Onionesque quotidian observational humor that peppered America: The Book is still present, but to a much lesser degree, something I'm going to chalk up the fact the influence of DJ Javerbaum (Onion writer), despite being credited as a writer and editor, was waning due to his leaving the show. Also, Ben Karlin, another notable Onion alumni, is absent, having left the show in 2006.
The lad humor aside-- there's plenty of lad humor. Far more than actually appears on the show (and this comes from a voracious fan) and it's grating, all too frequently overshadowing the genuinely sharp satire that the show is known for. I'm a fan of both the writing of John Oliver (The Bugle) and Wyatt Cenac (King of the Hill), new additions to the writing cast since the last book debuted, and I didn't really see their influence here.
The book is frequently funny, occasionally hilarious, and were it not for America: The Book, it'd probably fare better (although aforementioned lad aspect is hard to get around).
The book was disappointing to me, but my expectations were so high, it still lands as an amusing book and of course a must-read for Daily Show fans.
Notable: Under the chapter devoted to religion, I was pleased to note our inclusion, if the satire was a little off (for a better spoof of Pagans, see Wigfield) in parts in getting our stereotypes correct.
While hard to see from this image (not my scan), the young woman poised beneath the pentacle is clutching in her hand a copy of Twilight. While it's a good hit on the amount of clueless teens that "got interested" in Paganism through the goth-lite flick The Craft, Twilight may be about vampires, but it's about abstinence vampires and, dare I say it, it isn't goth. Maybe a True Blood DVD? In fairness, that might not be as recognizable.
Also notable is the style of this info box on their fashion pages (as a part of their chapter on culture):
My apologies for the lousy scan.
Looks quite similiar to Amelie Gilette's weekly Tolerability Index. Huh.
Title: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race by Jon Stewart
Details: Copyright 2010, Pentagram Books
Synopsis (By Way of Book's Website): "The eagerly awaited new book from the Emmy-winning, Oscar-hosting, Daily Show-anchoring Jon Stewart--the man behind the megaseller America (The Book). Where do we come from? Who created us? Why are we here? These questions have puzzled us since the dawn of time, but when it became apparent to Jon Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show that the world was about to end, they embarked on a massive mission to write a book that summed up the human race: What we looked like; what we accomplished; our achievements in society, government, religion, science and culture -- all in a tome of approximately 256 pages with lots of color photos, graphs and charts.
After two weeks of hard work, they had their book. EARTH (The Book) is the definitive guide to our species. With their trademark wit, irreverence, and intelligence, Stewart and his team will posthumously answer all of life's most hard-hitting questions, completely unburdened by objectivity, journalistic integrity, or even accuracy."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I am a frothing TDS fan and will buy/consume/read just about anything related to the show.
How I Liked It: This is definitely more "lad"-centered than America: The Book (despite having more female writing staff members, disproving any number of fauxminist axe-grinders even more wrong), with the boob jokes wearing thin by the middle of the book. The Onionesque quotidian observational humor that peppered America: The Book is still present, but to a much lesser degree, something I'm going to chalk up the fact the influence of DJ Javerbaum (Onion writer), despite being credited as a writer and editor, was waning due to his leaving the show. Also, Ben Karlin, another notable Onion alumni, is absent, having left the show in 2006.
The lad humor aside-- there's plenty of lad humor. Far more than actually appears on the show (and this comes from a voracious fan) and it's grating, all too frequently overshadowing the genuinely sharp satire that the show is known for. I'm a fan of both the writing of John Oliver (The Bugle) and Wyatt Cenac (King of the Hill), new additions to the writing cast since the last book debuted, and I didn't really see their influence here.
The book is frequently funny, occasionally hilarious, and were it not for America: The Book, it'd probably fare better (although aforementioned lad aspect is hard to get around).
The book was disappointing to me, but my expectations were so high, it still lands as an amusing book and of course a must-read for Daily Show fans.
Notable: Under the chapter devoted to religion, I was pleased to note our inclusion, if the satire was a little off (for a better spoof of Pagans, see Wigfield) in parts in getting our stereotypes correct.
While hard to see from this image (not my scan), the young woman poised beneath the pentacle is clutching in her hand a copy of Twilight. While it's a good hit on the amount of clueless teens that "got interested" in Paganism through the goth-lite flick The Craft, Twilight may be about vampires, but it's about abstinence vampires and, dare I say it, it isn't goth. Maybe a True Blood DVD? In fairness, that might not be as recognizable.
Also notable is the style of this info box on their fashion pages (as a part of their chapter on culture):
My apologies for the lousy scan.
Looks quite similiar to Amelie Gilette's weekly Tolerability Index. Huh.