Earth (The Book): A Visitor’s Guide to the Human Race

If you need a reviewer to tell you that Jon Stewart and his zany crew of Daily Show writers are funny, then you probably aren’t going to enjoy this follow-up tome, this worthy successor to Stewart’s earlier best seller, America (The Book). But, if you thought that the schtick might be wearing thin, or that the humor might not be so funny in print, then I’m here to assure you that there’s at least one certifiable laugh on every page, if your sense of humor hasn’t been utterly obliterated by the general insanity Stewart and his cohorts rallied against in D.C. on Oct. 30. Where else are you going to find people who can, apparently, make almost anything funny, from dogs to the devil, and from Hamburger Helper to Hammurabi? You want irreverence? You got it. As much as anything else I can name, The Daily Show has been the force that has kept at least some of the population grounded and marginally not nuts as we’ve endured a long period of extraordinary stupidity and cluelessness from our politicians, our news media, and far too many of our fellow citizens. If you need a little “sanity pause,” the wits who wrote Earth (The Book) should help you keep yours.