Book Review: "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents Earth" by Jon Stewart

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.

Hi-Lar-I-Ous. That's what this book is. I'm a fan of Jon Stewart and I watch the Daily Show. I have his first book, America (The Book) and as a historian I absolutely loved it. Therefore I was eagerly awaiting Earth as another reference guide that I could laugh at while reading. I was not disappointed. The book is set up as a textbook, a primer for the unknown creatures handling it, to learn about Earth, the way it was when it was inhabited.

Right away as soon as you open up the book, the familiar space to fill in your name (or fake name) in a textbook greets you. Start flipping pages and you'll start seeing pictures, graphs, maps and text to guide the reader into learning more about the planet, the inhabitants, and their habits while Earth existed. I actually read EVERYTHING in this book so it took me quite a while to read ALL the captions and all the text that was in the book. It was worth it because I laughed A LOT. I didn't get offended by anything while reading. The writers take shots at everything but nothing is too one sided in how they approach it. If you're sensitive to this sort of stuff, you might want to skim through certain parts, but overall it's pretty balanced. You just have to have a sense of humor to enjoy this sort of stuff.

While there are probably quite a few people who will not be interested in this book (due to language and some nudity), I found this book to be a wonderful diversion from all that is serious in life. I read this book during a tough time this past month and found it a great way to step back from the situation and just laugh. Comedy is a wonderful way to find bright spots in dark times and the writers of the Daily Show do just that in this book. It's chock full of laughing goodness and it also makes the reader step back and just look at everything with a second glance. Kudos to the writers for bringing to life this wonderful "reference book" and if another life form ever does pick up this book in the future, I'm sure that they will learn everything that they need to know about us and this planet from this book.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents Earth by Jon Stewart is published by Grand Central Publishing (2010)

This review copy was provided by the publisher