I Am America (And So Can You!)
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I Am America (And So Can You!)

3.86 of 5 stars 3.86  ·  rating details  ·  21,821 ratings  ·  2,379 reviews
I AM AMERICA (AND SO CAN YOU ) is Stephen Colbert's attempt to wedge his brain between hardback covers. In plain conversational language, not to mention the occasional grunt and/or whistle, Stephen explains his take on the most pressing concerns of our culture: Faith, Family, Politics...Hygiene.
Paperback, 240 pages
Published October 20th 2009 by Warner Books (first published October 2007)
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Nathan
Nathan rated it 5 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition
Recommends it for: South Carolinians
Most Americans are familiar with Stephen Colbert and his viciously partisan antics. He makes Ann Coulter, that hateful, Republican attack-hermaphrodite, look like a kindly grandmother. More recently, this lifelong right-winger attempted to subvert and sabotage both the democratic process and the Democratic Party by running as a Democrat for president in the state of South Carolina. Colbert has proven himself, time and again, to be a self-satisfied stooge less concerned with reality than with his...more
Stuart
Rachel and I were in the audience for the Colbert Report a week before the writers went on strike. I highly recommend seeing it live! Before the show Stephen takes questions from the audience. Rachel's question was "what are you reading right now?" Stephen said "A Jesuit of Broadway". Rachel asked "what is it about?" Stephen said "it's about a Jesuit on Broadway". Stephen then asked Rachel "what are you reading?" Rachel stammered "uh...more
FlibBityFLooB
Things I learned from listening to this audiobook:

- Dos/Don’ts for defrosting Stephen Colbert’s cryogenically frozen head.
- Why ice hockey is training for the eventual war with glaciers
- Red means stop. Green means go. Purple means Wednesday.
- Why Kittens really don’t wear mittens.
- What to say to the evil robot overlord to explode its hive mind when it takes over

WARNING: Do not attempt to listen to this book on headphones in public while drinki...more
Annalisa
If you like the Colbert Report, you'll probably like this book. Since Stephen Colbert is one of my favorite celebrities, I did very much enjoy the listen. I listened to it audio knowing that most of Stephen Colbert's comedic humor is the delivery. I found myself laughing out loud a lot. So yes imagine we wandering aisles as I shop or sitting amidst the cheering parents of a soccer game laughing to myself. Colbert has a rare gift of making something funny he doesn't believe in without making it a...more
Steven
Full disclosure, I am a huge fan of “The Colbert Report.” If I am awake at 11:30 p.m., I have to watch the show. Upon its first few viewings I thought that I might not like it as much as “The Daily Show,” but after a little bit of time in warming up to the character of Stephen Colbert, I quite frankly think that “Colbert Report” is in many ways the much funnier show.

Much to Mr. Colbert’s dismay, I checked this book out from the library and was unable to avail myself to the full e...more
Tracy
Tracy rated it 5 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition
Recommends it for: everyone
Recommended to Tracy by: Stephen Colbert
I suspect that Stephen Colbert, the relentlessly egotistical headlining author of I Am America (And So Can You!), would protest if you called his book funny, but it most definitely is funny. In his mind, however, the book is an indispensable work of truth and advice about how to navigate your life. In the directions for how to read the book, Colbert mentions that his book can be used to swear in people about to give testimony in the extraordinary absence of the Bible. This sums up the esteem wit...more
Mattomic
Thanks to MY secret librarian powers, I didn't get my hands on this before it was released, but I did get it before anyone else had the chance to check it out. My rating is premature and probably too generous, and it reflects my near-blind devotion to anything and everything Colbertian. That being said, from the bits and pieces I've read, it's utterly hilarious. Sure, there's a little something missing when you read his word (I have to imagine Colbert reading it in his unmistakable vocal style);...more
Dwight
My loving life partner & soul mate gave me this for Christmas. Perhaps she's hoping that it might rub off a bit and I might attain the same kind of twinkle in my eye that Stephen Colbert has. Alas, unlikely.

I had to give a presentation to a room full of local union leaders last weekend in Austin TX. These are mostly elected leaders of teacher union locals. So activist by nature. But all from western states, so you don't know exactly what to expect. I used a take-off on the title of t...more
Jeff
It's always an experiment when a comedian with no literary history writes (or collaborates to write) a book. Everyone knows that the 80/20 rule even applies to humor: 20% is the joke and 80% is the timing or delivery. With someone like Stephen Colbert - who I have endless respect for after delivering his famous White House Correspondents Dinner speech, which is wisely reprinted in this book - whose humor is predicated on physical, visual humor, it can be quite precarious treading into the waters...more
Joseph
Joseph rated it 4 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition
Recommends it for: Patriots and Colbert-lovers
Shelves: fiction
Don't get me wrong; this is a good book. It's a hoot. It's a lot of fun. It's ... exactly the book you think it is. If you've seen The Colbert Report, you're not going to find any new material. Stripped of current events, Colbert is forced to just play up all the generic jokes he uses all the time on his show. He hates facts and books and scientists and Hollywood. He loves the President and Bill O'Reilly and Catholicism and FoxNews. But there's not a lot that's particularly fresh. He ev...more
treehugger
treehugger rated it 2 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition
Recommends it for: not really anyone, even if you love Colbert....just a lame-o book in general!
Shelves: audiobooks
Ok, so I was totally let down by this book, and I can't remember the last time I just wished the author who was reading the book to me on my commute would just SHUT THE HELL UP. I wasn't expecting that, being as how I'm a huge Jon Stewart fan, have loved the books of his I have read, and like the Colbert Report (although since I haven't had cable for years, I only see it sporadically while housesitting for other, more affluent individuals :)).

Anyway, it had no coherent plot, made ...more
Colleen
There were a number of times in this book I was laughing out loud, not just a little chuckle, but a full belly laugh. I wouldn't recommend this book to someone who is P.C. sensitive (mom!) or you might just have a stroke before you get to chapter three; and maybe not for the uber-conservative, but even the moderate conservative thinker might find this amusing considering the state of politics today. If you like a good political farce, you are in for a good laugh. A warning on some of the lang...more
Tara
This is certainly not a literary masterpiece, but it is a good book to have beside the bed. I liked to read a few pages before going to sleep as it was the perfect non-committal, good for a chuckle book.

I also like that Colbert's speech to the White House Correspondents Dinner was included at the end of the book. That was a great speech and proved that Colbert's got big ones!
Griffin Betz
First, I want to thank Mr. Colbert for saving me from a dim and meaningless life as a book-reading, thought-having, liberal. "I AM AMERICA (And So Can You)" showed me the light (not that I'm a fan of The Enlightenment) and released me from my prison of 'reality' and 'facts.'



Even better, Mr. Colbert taught me that books are useless objects that only make you think. Think of all the money I'll save now that I can stop reading! (Note to Amazon: Maybe you shouldn't carry this book, if too ...more
Philitsa
This book took me forever to read. Imagine 240 pages of The Colbert Report's "The Word" segment. There's a reason why it's only a minute or so long -- that's only as much as a sane person can digest at a time.

Now, I don't want imply that I didn't enjoy reading the book. I just had to do it in very... small... doses. Otherwise, I'd get frustrated and want to claw my eyes out. That's all.

There were a few pages that made me chortle, but it took me so long to...more
The Millman
The Millman rated it 4 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition
Recommends it for: Anyone who watches the Colbert Report.
This book is funny. Just by reading the title and the back cover (which incidentally only had about 15 words on it) I knew that this book would be funny. And it is, but it's not much else. The character that Colbert plays on his show (intensely-conservative-right-wing-republican) is not actually him. It's almost like this alter ego he has created. In real life, Colbert is a left-wing-liberal. But on his show, he's completely the opposite. So being a regular watcher of his show, and knowing what...more
Amy Galaviz
Amy Galaviz rated it 3 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition
Recommends it for: anyone who watches The Colbert Report
I absolutely love The Colbert Report and refuse to miss an episode. There were a few very funny sections in the book. His pompous sarcastic masquerading as a far-right Catholic republican is always funny, and I enjoy his ability to elevate himself to God-like status and make fun of himself at the same time. However, the wittiness he does so well on his show has its limits in book form, and his "shouting" tone does get old after a while. He tried to create the mood of The Word by in...more
Angel
I have been looking forward to reading this for a while. Our library finally got the new bestsellers collection processed, so I have checked it out. I just started it.

* * * *

Actually, the book is a bit disappointing. It has its funny moments, but there is a lot of fluff in between the funny parts. It does capture the tone of any pundit book out there, and that may actually work against it as well; pundit books suffer from the problem of just going on too long to make the...more
Derrith
Not sure why it took me so long to finish this book. I would pick it up, read a bit, put it down and move on to something else. Maybe it's like when you save your Halloween candy and your siblings (who scarfed theirs before their costumes even came off) are jealous when you still have a Snickers fun size with your lunch well into December.
Now that I'm done, and my sides ache from laughing, I'm glad I doled it out to myself in small doses. It was less about savoring and more about the f...more
Graceann
Graceann rated it 5 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition
Recommends it for: All fans of humor/Colbert
Shelves: humor
Please see my detailed review at Amazon.com Grace's "Stephen Colbert" Review

Please click that the review was helpful to you at Amazon so that my rating continues to climb! Seriously, I'm getting a complex. :-) Thanks!

Stephen Colbert is hilarious, as I expected him to be, and there was never any doubt that I would be buying this book. I usually pass books along when I'm done reading them, and there's plenty of demand for this one, but I'm not giving it up for ...more
piraterie
piraterie rated it 4 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition
Recommends it for: truthiness seekers
Shelves: read2007, satire
I'm probably being a bit generous with my rating; my mad Colbert love compels me to add probably a star more than this actually deserves. There's nothing new here, after all; it's what you see on the show, minus most references to current events. It's exactly what you'd expect from the "Stephen Colbert" character. But it is funny, and I like the Fun Zones and charts and stickers and pictures. And I appreciated the inclusion of the transcript of the 2006 White House Correspondents' ...more
Jack
Hilariously funny. Obviously, this isn't the kind of book to read if you're looking for a deep, thought provoking political analysis of modern America-- it's the kind of book to provoke hysteric contractions of your vocal chords and occasionally a rightist joke.

The only thing about this book is that the whole work is satire of the right-wing of politics. And if you don't know Stephen Colbert's style, you'll probably think he's a serious nutjob with the self-absorbency of a 3m sponge ...more
Kelly
Kelly rated it 4 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition
Recommended to Kelly by: stephen colbert - he says great things about it
you can learn everything you need to know from this book - 1001 abstinence positions, how homosexuals are ruining our country, how all religions are okay (there are several paths towards accepting jesus christ as your savior), how to fix the immigration problem, and why fox news is the only fair and equal news source. it's like a really long episode of the colbert report, but it turns out that actually seeing and hearing stephen colbert are all part of the experience. still worth the read. i ...more
Nicole Pugh
Thanks to my secret librarian powers, I got a sneek-peek read of this book before its street date. Don't worry; you'll love it just as much as you hoped. Chock full of Colbert's signature smart-ass humor, readers will laugh (and cry) from beginning to end, and in the true style of "The Report", Colbert leaves no political leader unjabbed and no celebrity untaunted. Sure to be a best-seller (that is, if everyone that wants to read it buys the book... "no libraries, okay? Librar...more
Jennifer
Andrew bought me this book (along with some others) from my wishlist for m birthday. This book was released in 2007 and has been on my wishlist that entire time, so I was quite delighted to finally get my hands on it! Of course, the lag also meant that some portions were no longer as topical, but it was much less a problem than I thought it might be.

There is definitely a difference between reading Colbert and watching Colbert. A few times during early chapters on family and sexuality, ...more
David Fenstersheib
I bought this book with the hopes it would deliver the same witty and satirical jokes made from his show and this book did not disappoint! Right on the flap of this book do we have him already taking a famous line that is one of the foundations this country was built upon. The famous quote "I may not agree with everything you are saying, but Ill fight to the death for your right to say it." was then switched to "You may not agree with everything Stephen says, but at the very least...more
Phillip Dimarzo
Most Americans are familiar with Stephen Colbert and his viciously partisan antics. He makes Ann Coulter, that hateful, Republican attack-hermaphrodite, look like a kindly grandmother. More recently, this lifelong right-winger attempted to subvert and sabotage both the democratic process and the Democratic Party by running as a Democrat for president in the state of South Carolina. Colbert has proven himself, time and again, to be a self-satisfied stooge less concerned with reality than with his...more
Kat  Kennedy
Stephen Colbert is the highly entertaining comedian that has been mocking Republicans relentlessly at every turn. Not that they don't kind of take themselves seriously and could sometimes benefit from a good mocking.

I can say this because I'm not a liberal either. I'm Australian. I have no vested interest in American politics. You know what I do have a vested interest in? Funny.

Now, I generally find John Stewart funnier and I appreciate Colbert's moronic, dead-pan Re...more
Tom Croom
I read some of this book and then I got smart and enjoyed it via audio book. Some written works become much more lively when the author (who is also a performer) shares his or her own words in their own voice. In enjoying it that way, you leave the road of interpretation and drive on the highway of intent as the author conveys meaning with his/her inflection and tone.

Now that the deep thought is out of the way, let's just cut to the chase: this book is damn funny.

As a fan o...more
Josh Hanke
It's a wonderful right-wing satire. Here are a few of my favorite pieces that received an audible laugh amidst others while I was at the airport:

On Family - "Every organization needs strong leadership. At home my word is law. Whatever I say goes. For instance, recently my son wanted a laptop computer for his birthday. I said, 'Go ask your mother.' And he did. That's respect."

"And sure, it's nice to have a second income to buy the little extras like vacat...more
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Anything lost in translation? 12 124 Nov 25, 2008 09:24am  
The Stephen T. Colbert Award Sticker 7 53 Oct 13, 2008 08:45pm  
Marking pages with stickers? 4 83 Jun 23, 2008 10:56am  
I am America (And So Can You!)
I Am America (And So Can You!)
I Am America (And So Can You!)
I Am America (And So Can You!)
I Am America (And So Can You!)

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Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American comedian, satirist, actor, and writer known for his ironic style, particularly in his portrayal of uninformed opinion leaders and deadpan comedic delivery.
Colbert originally studied to be an actor, but became interested in improvisational theater when he met famed Second City director Del Close while attending Northwestern University. He first performed ...more
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