Started to read, got though a bit and could not finish. This was a truly horrible and bad book.

Maybe I wasn't wearing my smarty pants when I was reading this because Stewart's topical and satirical wit just went over my head. I wanted to like this so much more than I actually did. I'll stick to my nightly fix of The Daily Show.

I’ve enjoyed Mr. Stewart’s biting political satire for a number of years, from his hosting the “Daily Show” to his guest appearances on Stephen Colbert. Energetic, emotional, passionate, and funny as hell. So when I picked this book up at a Little Free Library, I was looking forward to further belly laughs and insightful comment.
Unfortunately, with some exceptions, that wasn’t the case with this book. The writing seemed wooden and uninspired, and my reaction was largely “meh.” Now, I’ll allow that the transition from written word to actual in-person performance may well be a clunky one, and also that it was published in 1998, when Mr. Stewart was doing stand-up and before he had gained as much notoriety as he currently has.
Nonetheless, as I indicated above, some of these 18 pieces were indeed laugh-out-loud funny, if at times cringeworthy, the most notable being when Hitler made an appearance on Larry King’s show. Others include: A hilarious account of the Last Supper by “Avram the Waiter;” DaVinci’s lost notebook, containing sketches of such things as a Renaissance “wine hat,” the Dollar Pitcher and Buffalo Wings at Zeta’s (“Note: Experiment with dips, Goat’s Blood too heavy.”), and something called an “ass comb, for men with a hirsute gluteus; A “recipe” for how to put on an awards show, complete with sets, raiment and host’s snarky comments; and a debate between the Devil and Bill Gates as to who is more evil (think, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” in an IT context).
So these little essays “saved” the book, but not enough for me to highly recommend it. Three stars.

He's a good writer. Many of these sketches and essays are very funny. My favorites included the correspondence between Lady Di and Mother Theresa, and the Hanson Family Christmas Letters (though a bit dated now I guess--who's Hanson, right?) end awesomely. The satire of the Kennedy family also works, and there's a lot of Jewish humor that's still very funny for goyim. I don't watch him on t.v. but I liked this.

Although I did find some of the stories amusing, many were a little to harsh for me.

Ah yes. Very dated, and you can see Jon Stewart was still smoking a lot of weed because he thought he was incredibly hilarious, but it was a nice throwback to the time I cannot remember and the Jon Stewart I never knew.

Funny in many places. Something brilliant in every story. You can see the man is obviously a genius. But I suspect I would have found it funnier back when it was written. Better than "Cruel Shoes", and tries hard to be like Woody Allen's "Without Feathers" and "Getting Even" (and mostly succeeds). But this type of written humor, sadly, is now a lost art form. People want memes; those with longer attention spans can handle short You Tube videos. Thoughtful, complex satire in written form is dying out. Sigh. Ok, i was in a good mood a moment ago after reading this book, and now I'm all bummed out just reviewing it. Time for some "Funny or Die".

Some of the essay premises were dated and the tone occasionally skewed to like, sardonic liberal who can't quite commit to a full critique - but that is true of Jon Stewart as a whole, it's partially true of me, and so I very much enjoyed it.

It was funny and short. But I think I'm to out of the political loop to enjoy some of the older political jokes or references. I particularly liked the New Judaism essay. I guess with my religious background, or lack there of, I like things that mock religious absurdities. I enjoyed the picture of religions as companies tring to sell there producte with a mascot. Over all I enjoyed the read. I think I'll probably read his other book soon as well.

Reads like classic Jon Stewart, pre-Daily Show fame. A lot of similar topics as explored in his stand up, but further developed into skits, scenes, sketches.

3.5

Honestly I adore JS but this was not that funny.