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354th out of 962 books
—
1,178 voters
Naked Pictures of Famous People
by
Jon Stewart
In these nineteen whip-smart essays, Jon Stewart takes on politics, religion, and celebrity with a seethingly irreverent wit, a brilliantsense of timming, and a palate for the obsurd -- and these one-of-a-kind forays into his hilarious world will expose you to all its wickedly naked truths.He's the MTV generation's master of modern humor, a star of film, TV, and the comedy...more
Paperback, 163 pages
Published
September 22nd 1999
by Harper Paperbacks
(first published 1998)
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Humor. These short fiction pieces are supposed to be funny, and I did laugh a few times, but mostly I felt like something was missing. It looks and sounds like it should be funny: Martha Stewart's decorating tips for vaginas, Lady Di's correspondence with Mother Teresa, the secret Gerald Ford tapes ("Did you know both my names end in d?"), but in almost every case it feels like the joke's been lost in the translation. Stewart's a talented writer with a flair for comedic word choice, and the book...more
From "The Cult"
"I imagine myself as the persuasive leader of a messianic cult. Somewhat of a stretch considering I have yet to be able to sell off a box of Amway products I ordered in 1986. Still, would I have the strength? Would I be able to overcome my fear of death, zealous crowds and death by zealous crowds? Would I be able to keep a straight face as I took command of people's lives with rhetoric I thought of when I was high? Would I understand the intricacies of forming a tax-exempt organiz...more
"I imagine myself as the persuasive leader of a messianic cult. Somewhat of a stretch considering I have yet to be able to sell off a box of Amway products I ordered in 1986. Still, would I have the strength? Would I be able to overcome my fear of death, zealous crowds and death by zealous crowds? Would I be able to keep a straight face as I took command of people's lives with rhetoric I thought of when I was high? Would I understand the intricacies of forming a tax-exempt organiz...more
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I started as a fan of Jon Stewart during his run on MTV, and it just increased at a ridiculous speed between his comedy central special where he talks about going to the proctologist, this book, and eventually settling in with the Daily Show (I know, I know, I used to be obsessed with Craig Kilborne as well, so sue me). But this book is just hilarious and smart and really shows how brillant he is and would soon show.
I used to lend people this book in good faith that they would return it, but it'...more
I used to lend people this book in good faith that they would return it, but it'...more
A very funny book and, along with Steve Martin's "Pure Drivel" and Chris Buckley's "Wry Martinis", my impetus to write my first (quite sloppy) collection of essays on pop culture, "Smirking into the Abyss".
Jon juxtaposes some great cultural icons, such as the correspondences between Princess Diana and Mother Teresa, Vincent Van Gogh trying to communicate with his brother in an internet chat room, The Last Supper taking place in a trendy restaurant, Hitler guesting on "Larry King", and my favorit...more
Jon juxtaposes some great cultural icons, such as the correspondences between Princess Diana and Mother Teresa, Vincent Van Gogh trying to communicate with his brother in an internet chat room, The Last Supper taking place in a trendy restaurant, Hitler guesting on "Larry King", and my favorit...more
This was a present from some friends, for which I am very thankful. It's a series of comedic essays, similar to Steve Martin's Pure Drivel or Woody Allen's Without Feathers, and it is quite funny. Not really laugh-out-loud funny, but funny. I think Stewart's comedy is best rendered as a spoken art. He's fantastic with inflection and timing, which unfortunately doesn't translate so well onto the page.
Still and all, there's a lot of good stuff in here. "The Devil and William Gates" is excellent, a...more
Still and all, there's a lot of good stuff in here. "The Devil and William Gates" is excellent, a...more
Sporadically amusing, but nowhere near as funny as I would have expected from Jon Stewart. Some of these essays had the potential to be truly, caustically funny—Martha Stewart's tips on how to tastefully decorate your vagina; Larry King interviewing Adolf Hitler—but others either suffered obviously from not being delivered orally by Stewart, with the timing and pacing and inflection that he does so well, or were just plain silly. The opening story in particular, the one about the Kennedys, was r...more
This collection from 1998 will be disappointing for most of Stewart's fans (I am one). The first story is a pretty good dissection of the Kennedy family mythos which nicely demonstrates Stewart's raunchy-but-good-natured wit. Unfortunately, the rest of the book is pretty pointless: juvenile, facile, and rarely funny. The stories seem to grope toward satire, but with neither the deserving targets nor the clear moral point of view that make the Daily Show so sharp, articulate, and entertaining. Th...more
I have to say that I *do* have more intellectual reading material on my list, but the first thing that I've gotten myself to finish lately is John Stewart's Naked Pictures of Famous People. I've only in the past year or so become a "Daily Show" viewer. I watched it many, many years ago, and not understanding much of politics and why the show's even supposed to be funny, I panned it. That said, I still usually fast-forward through the people that aren't JS. They just tend to annoy the piss out of...more
I am from the younger generation that knows Jon Stewart almost entirely from the Daily Show. That being said, I greatly appreciate his wit and humor, and mostly his ability to satirize political situations in interesting ways.
I found his book laugh out loud funny. I rarely find a book that makes me laugh, and I mean genuinely laugh. I found the correspondence between Princess Di and Mother Theresa, The Ford Tapes, and the waiter's perspective in the Last Supper particularly hilarious. The book d...more
I found his book laugh out loud funny. I rarely find a book that makes me laugh, and I mean genuinely laugh. I found the correspondence between Princess Di and Mother Theresa, The Ford Tapes, and the waiter's perspective in the Last Supper particularly hilarious. The book d...more
Apr 24, 2010
Dan
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Daily Show fans, satire fans, political humor fans, Jewish humor fans
"During the spring of 1935," the first entry begins, "I had the good fortune of making as my close acquaintance none other than John F. (Jack) Kennedy." Thus begins a romp through the fantastic and absurdly imagined worlds of the rich and famous, which I somehow discovered in the non-fiction section of my local library. Perhaps not as topical 10+ years on, Naked Pictures is still no less hilarious.
Fans of the Daily Show will recognize Stewart's usual dry wit in dealing with celebrity, while fans...more
Fans of the Daily Show will recognize Stewart's usual dry wit in dealing with celebrity, while fans...more
As funny as I may have found this book, that's all it was to me. A funny little book that really had no impact on me. The stories were amusing and short, so easy for anyone to read.
Now some of the stories may be offensive to people and that's what I worry about with this book. The first story was about the Kennedys. That one I just sat there thinking to myself, "What the hell am I reading?" Not really the best little story in the book I can tell you that. I liked the other chapters much more. An...more
Now some of the stories may be offensive to people and that's what I worry about with this book. The first story was about the Kennedys. That one I just sat there thinking to myself, "What the hell am I reading?" Not really the best little story in the book I can tell you that. I liked the other chapters much more. An...more
Quick, easy, fun read that had me alternately laughing out loud and groaning inwardly.
I used to kind of dislike Jon Stewart, because he took over the Daily Show from one of my favorite former Sportscenter anchors Craig Kilnborn - but after all he has done to and for the program, I am a big enough man to admit I was wrong.
Stewart is 10 times the host / comedian Kilborn ever wished he could be.
In the vernacular of sports, if hosting the daily show was a competitive sport, Kilborn couldnt carry St...more
I used to kind of dislike Jon Stewart, because he took over the Daily Show from one of my favorite former Sportscenter anchors Craig Kilnborn - but after all he has done to and for the program, I am a big enough man to admit I was wrong.
Stewart is 10 times the host / comedian Kilborn ever wished he could be.
In the vernacular of sports, if hosting the daily show was a competitive sport, Kilborn couldnt carry St...more
Being a fan of Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, I had to give this book a read after discovering it marked down at my local bookstore. I was not disappointed. This book is essentially a collection of essays about popular culture, religion and politics, all of which are typically associated with Stewart. While some of the stories were a bit lengthy and fell short on laughs (Breakfast at Kennedy's) and some seriously outdated (A Very Hanson Christmas) which is to be expected in a book about popular...more
First and foremost, this book contains no naked pictures. What it does include is a rather naked view inside the unique mind of Jon Stewart, the host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central.
From personal hygiene tips from his mental version of Martha Stewart, to a fictional romp spent in Hyannis with JFK and family, Naked Pictures of Famous People is a tour through the psyche of one of today's foremost comedic minds. Yet another book on this list that will need to be skipped when making that bedtime...more
From personal hygiene tips from his mental version of Martha Stewart, to a fictional romp spent in Hyannis with JFK and family, Naked Pictures of Famous People is a tour through the psyche of one of today's foremost comedic minds. Yet another book on this list that will need to be skipped when making that bedtime...more
Oct 19, 2009
Evanston Public Library
added it
Fans of Stewart’s Emmy Award-winning Daily Show may not know about this hilarious collection of decade-old short stories. I especially liked “The Devil and Williams Gates” (a take-off on Stephen Vincent Benet’s classic “Devil and Daniel Webster”), “The New Judaism” (featuring such predictions as “in 2010 Jewish life in America will have deteriorated to the point where a Seinfeld reunion special will be a non-sweeps event”), and “Martha Stewart’s Vagina.” Stewart’s mockeries of television program...more
This is pretty lame considering the delivery Stewart musters in Daily Show mode. A string of anecdotal pieces and essays which seem overworked despite their length and open flow.
The monologue from the waiter at the Last Supper is inventive but forcing the rest of the material only gets Stewart so far. Nonetheless, I appreciated his ability to sustain the story line over a longer period than the usual stand up routine which are often so staccato.
Stewart was trying to pull off something that he di...more
The monologue from the waiter at the Last Supper is inventive but forcing the rest of the material only gets Stewart so far. Nonetheless, I appreciated his ability to sustain the story line over a longer period than the usual stand up routine which are often so staccato.
Stewart was trying to pull off something that he di...more
Uma colecção de ensaios humorísticos pelo apresentador do melhor programa de televisão de todos os tempos: The Daily Show (w/ Jon Stewart).
Este livro tem alguns momentos brilhantes, mas, de forma geral, ficou muitíssimo aquém das expectativas. Diria até que alguns dos textos incluídos neste livro são, à falta de um termo cientificamente mais apropriado, aborrecidos.
No entanto, isto deve-se em grande parte à tradução portuguesa que falha de forma absolutamente espectacular em vários momentos-chav...more
Este livro tem alguns momentos brilhantes, mas, de forma geral, ficou muitíssimo aquém das expectativas. Diria até que alguns dos textos incluídos neste livro são, à falta de um termo cientificamente mais apropriado, aborrecidos.
No entanto, isto deve-se em grande parte à tradução portuguesa que falha de forma absolutamente espectacular em vários momentos-chav...more
I have the utmost respect for Jon Stewart, as a mind and as a human being. (That's not to say I think he's right about everything, but I'm not dumb enough to think that I'm right about everything, either.) So I probably went into this book with too high of expectations.
It is clever. And, when I knew enough about the subject of a particular essay (e.g., "Breakfast at the Kennedy's," the first installment), it was apt and funny. But I don't know much about a lot of the subjects, and it is not my k...more
It is clever. And, when I knew enough about the subject of a particular essay (e.g., "Breakfast at the Kennedy's," the first installment), it was apt and funny. But I don't know much about a lot of the subjects, and it is not my k...more
While it may be one of the earlier (in terms of year) books of essays I've read by a comedian, it's far from the best. I don't know what it was -- the dated references (Hanson, etc.) or the style -- but I found it really hard to get through a lot of these essays. What should have taken me an hour or two to read took far longer than that.
That's not to say it's bad. His Larry King / Hitler interview was funny -- that might have been my favorite essay in the book. (Maybe that was a lot of it -- a l...more
That's not to say it's bad. His Larry King / Hitler interview was funny -- that might have been my favorite essay in the book. (Maybe that was a lot of it -- a l...more
Second time reading this. Good light humor, for when your brain can't handle complicated sentence structure. The Larry King interview with Hitler is quite good, as is the description of the three levels of Judaism (my favorite line is Guilt: Total--Total--Total.) Uneven narrative voice though through some of the chapters, some parts not as strong as others. The Martha Stewart spoof is funny, but needs to be shaped a bit more to really make it tight and pithy.
On the whole, I miss Jon Stewart's de...more
On the whole, I miss Jon Stewart's de...more
I really wanted to love this. Maybe it was a matter of timing -- either I should have read it closer to its 1998 publication for cultural references to be more relevant, or I should have read it before Jon Stewart was so culturally relevant on his own. This is not his best work... but who really does their best work *before* a hugely successful TV show of over a decade?
I did enjoy "The New Judaism" and "Adolf Hitler: The Larry King Interview". "The Last Supper, or the Dead Waiter" wasn't bad, a...more
I did enjoy "The New Judaism" and "Adolf Hitler: The Larry King Interview". "The Last Supper, or the Dead Waiter" wasn't bad, a...more
A short, entertaining read from the host of The Daily Show. Billed as a collection of "essays", it is an eclectic collection of fictional 3rd-person accounts from a variety of real and imagined characters. Not being familiar with the format going in, it took a chapter before I realized what I was reading. Once aware, pure funny. Only thing that dragged was fact that book is more than 10 years old, so several of the "topical" references are not only dated but confusing (Hanson chapter would have...more
I fail to understand how any Stewart fan would like this book. Myself, being a huge fan of his work, find myself so incredibly disappointed by this collection of essays about several famous people. And the only reason why I gave this two stars instead of one were the "New Judaism" essay and the one about Jesus. I laughed quite a few times during these two. During the rest I found myself just reading to get to the end of it, hoping that I would find something that made me laugh out loud.
What I f...more
What I f...more
I read this long ago, but didn't really remember it. When I found it again in my piles of books, I gave it a read. It's short, and thus fast. The book consists of a dozen or so different bits, with Stewart taking on various personas, such as Jack Kennedy's grade-school Jewish friend, or telling the tale of Bill Gates selling his soul to the devil. While almost 15 years old and not light on pop culture references, the book does still work.
Overall, the wit is sharp and there are often quite comica...more
Overall, the wit is sharp and there are often quite comica...more
Jon Stewart is the man. In my opinion, he is the smartest comedian on late night t.v. which is what initially drew me to this book. The book is a collection of short essays that Jon Stewart has written so there is no singular topic throughout the book. That may be good or bad for some people but it didn't bother me. What I liked most about the book is Stewart's ability to take something as ridiculous and unbelievable as hanging out with the Kennedy boys as a kid and make it seem believable. As f...more
This book made me lol from time to time but there were also a few moments where I felt it dragged a bit. There were also a lot of references (and yes, this could be more the fault of he reader than the writer) to people I wasn't familiar enough with to probably understand all of his refernces... though Stewart's referncing of popular and not-so-popular public and historical figures is not quite to the caliber of Dennis Miller's focus on obscurity. America hands down beats Naked Pictures of Famou...more
I've seen Jon Stewart on The Daily Show and thought he was very funny. What I like about his sense of humor is that it is funny because it's TRUE. He doesn't have to embellish much, only point out the humor or hypocrisy in what already exists. This book is a different sort of humor, more scripted/invented. While reading it I felt like I should instead be watching it performed as a sketch comedy. Also, most of this book is based on current events. Unfortunately I came to read it in 2012 even thou...more
I have relatives who are rabid fans of The Daily Show. I've watched clips now and then but never a full show. So when I came across Naked Pictures of Famous People by Jon Stewart from before he was hosting The Daily Show I thought I should give it a read.
This short book of satire has eighteen essays crammed into 163 pages. There are all number of different famous people from the Kennedys, the Hansons, Martha Stewart, Princess Diana and Mother Theresa, Hitler and Leonardo da Vinci among others. E...more
This short book of satire has eighteen essays crammed into 163 pages. There are all number of different famous people from the Kennedys, the Hansons, Martha Stewart, Princess Diana and Mother Theresa, Hitler and Leonardo da Vinci among others. E...more
Jon Stewart is a pretty funny guy.
That said I expected a lot more more from this collection of his essays. Of them only the first in the book ("Breakfast at Kennedy's") stood out, which is why this is getting 2 stars rather than one. The rest, while I appreciated his mixing absurdist comedy with Borscht Belt humor, seemed strained. The book as a collection was disjointed and seemed cobbled together as an effort to cash in on his early popularity by publishing... well... anything.
That said I expected a lot more more from this collection of his essays. Of them only the first in the book ("Breakfast at Kennedy's") stood out, which is why this is getting 2 stars rather than one. The rest, while I appreciated his mixing absurdist comedy with Borscht Belt humor, seemed strained. The book as a collection was disjointed and seemed cobbled together as an effort to cash in on his early popularity by publishing... well... anything.
Yes I read this book many years ago now when I was still in high school but I still vividly remember how my parents raised their eyebrows when they saw the title of this book, she was relieved to flip through and see only text! I admit that a lot of it was over my head, I often didn't know the figures Stewart was referencing and thus could only appreciate fragments of the joke. There were a few essays where I 'got' all of it though, and those were very fun to read.
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Jon Stewart (born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz) is an American comedian, satirist, actor, writer, Pundit, and producer. He is best known as the host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and for his political satire.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See authors with similar names here.
Stewart started as a stand-up comedian, but later branched out to...more
More about Jon Stewart...
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See authors with similar names here.
Stewart started as a stand-up comedian, but later branched out to...more
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