Earth (The Book)- Jon Stewart & staff of the Daily Show

Purchase:  Amazon | Chapters

Published:  2010
Pages:  238
ISBN:  9780446579223
Genre:  Humour

Start Date:  Dec. 26, 2010
Finished Date:  Jan. 16, 2011

Where Found:  Chapters-Indigo (bought as an Xmas gift for my dad)
Why Read:  After skimming through it & hearing my dad laugh through it all, I had to read the whole thing!

Summary:  An encyclopedic guide to our planet for future alien visitors/invaders.

Review:

After the raucous, side-splitting & scarily accurate roast of government and society in America, Jon Stewart and his minions at The Daily Show (not to be mistaken for The Jon Stewart Show or The John Daily Show) return with a far wider scope in their crosshairs:  Earth.  Divided into broad ranging categories of Earth, life, man, the life cycle, society, commerce, religion, science & culture, writers mix historically accurate facts with acerbic jabs at the hilarity of accomplishing just that.  Oh, and there's some anatomical humour in there, too.

The concept of creating a guidebook for intellectual E.T. superiors to judge the eventual demise of our planet and the human race that once dominated it supports the idea that for all of our cultural and creative accomplishments in our few billion years of existence, we aren't all that far removed from our cavemen ancestors.  If you doubt this in any way, there are a plethora of examples to set you straight.

While the book's content is very comprehensive and organized like an encyclopedia, which no one in their right mind would read cover to cover chronologically, Earth is too rich of a read to be stuck in a bathroom book basket.  Maybe the audiobook is the best way to go.  Overall, the picture captions and small tweakings of photos, documents, and quotations offer the funniest material, but no category is underwritten.  The sections on man, the life cycle, society and culture offer the best laughs.  Case in point: Larry King posing for a lesson on anatomy, Mr. Potato Head modeling the senses, and Barbie & Ken's Dream House bathroom as a prop for maintenance.  What gets a bit tired are the overlong chapter introductions and some of the sections' opening paragraphs where the jokes get stale.  The book is still very funny and worth a read, but to get the most out of it is probably best consumed on audiobook over a longer stretch of time.

Rank:  (B)- Very Good, Recommend