My review of this book can be found on my YouTube Vlog at:

https://youtu.be/aAWM_tr-O9o

Enjoy! ( )

Laugh out loud hilarious. There were several points where I had to stop because I was laughing so hard. If you enjoyed watching him on The Daily Show, you'll enjoy this. ( )

A very funny book and, along with Steve Martin's "Pure Drivel" and Chris Buckley's "Wry Martinis", my impetus to write my first (quite sloppy) collection of essays on pop culture, "Smirking into the Abyss".

Jon juxtaposes some great cultural icons, such as the correspondences between Princess Diana and Mother Teresa, Vincent Van Gogh trying to communicate with his brother in an internet chat room, The Last Supper taking place in a trendy restaurant, Hitler guesting on "Larry King", and my favorite, the progression of the yearly 'Christmas form letter' from the mom of the kids from Hanson.

The only pitfall is, as with any pop culture-driven book (as I quickly learned) is that the shelf-life can be very brief, so some references are stale, unless you can take yourself back to the late 90's as you read to appreciate the pith with which Jon nails the reference. But, for the most part, the pieces hold up remarkably well. This is a very funny book. ( )

Why did I pick up the book? I loved the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and am generally a big fan of his. However, this is a book that I probably read too late. I am not saying this because I am overly enthused and thus regret not to have read it earlier, but rather that it is not that timeless to be read at any time. While I enjoyed a lot of the book, some chapters just seemed too out of date for me to enjoy them as (I think) I would have enjoyed them a decade ago or straight after publication in 1999. My 3 stars rating is thus probably more my fault than Stewart's. ( )

NA