Colbert, previously of The Daily Show, today resides over The Colbert Report, a near-daily TV extravaganza in which he plays an American right-wing TV pundit, thrashing everything liberal in his path. While the show deals with reality, its contents are rarely as such. For a lot of outsiders – i.e. non-Americans* – the contents of his show often seem exotic, making the humor quite evident. To a lot of Americans, I know this is not the case. As the syndicated right-wing rhetoric is often reminiscent of Hitler’s charms, Colbert evolves his humor on that and hence, his show is ripe with comments like:

“Once upon a time, racism was a terrible problem in this country.”

“If there’s a bigger contributor to left-wing elitist brainwashing than colleges and universities, I’d like to see it. There’s an old saying, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” Which means a lot of knowledge must be a really dangerous thing. And it is. Look no further than the example of Ted Kaczynski, a.k.a. the Unabomber. He skipped sixth grade, got a Bachelor’s from Harvard followed by a Master’s and a Ph.D., and then embarked on a distinguished academic career of blowing people up. Most Ph.D. biographies have similar endings.”

So, the book is much of the same, also with annotated margin comments! Chapter names vary from The Family, Religion, Sex & Dating, Homosexuals to Class War, The Media, Immigrants and Science, which are just as confrontational, prejudiced, narcissistic and funny as you’d expect.

Reading this book is quite like watching his show. Or watching Bill Hicks do his routine about how the American government fabricated the story on Oswald killing JFK. It’s reality gift-wrapped, although Hicks wasn’t right-winged, erhm.

All in all, a very funny read that aggravated me on more than one occasion, enlightened me on several and made me think of another Colbert quote:

“Reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

• This isn’t applicable to countries where one person owns all media. Yes, you, Italy, and…Rupert Murdoch!

I really like the show, but I suppose that I respond more to the facial expressions and physical comedy, because I really didn’t find this book all that entertaining. I got a few chuckles out of it, but not much else. I’d rather watch the show than read this by far.

I wanted to read this book, but ended up getting it in Audio. It’s perfect that way! The only thing I hate are the “Stephen Speaks For Me” segements. They’re filled with profanity and nowhere near as funny as having Stephen talk. The only segment worth hearing are God and John Stewart’s take of an ailing communist comedian.
Still book is worth consuming and awfully funny!

Not terrible, but not great. As has been said before, much like a long long episode of the Report, but without the dynamism that an actual Colbert brings to the table. Likewise no guests. I found that the sidebars were occasionally amusing, but didn’t have the same impact that the Word does, as one has to actually interrupt the reading of the main text to get the full effect of the sidebars, whereas the word just seeps into your head as Colbert talks. Still, there are a number of funny bits, and I did chuckle aloud in places. If you like the show, it’s probably worthwhile at least borrowing the book from someone.

After watching the show since its inception, I was looking forward to the book. My expectations were set far too high.

It is, as the other reviewer said, a 230-page episode of the Colbert Report. Whereas Colbert’s program has fantastic nuance and spontaneity, the same shtick doesn’t work as well in book form (which itself is a self-referential irony), even with the abundant snarky side notes. (These are much like The W0rd ).

Overall, I was disappointed.

I’m being a bit generous with the ‘consumed’ status. I fully read the first fifty or so pages, then skimmed through the rest, reading bits here and there. It is 230 pages of an episode of the Colbert Report, except boring and without the charm. Nothing remotely new here, just the same jokes and jabs at the same targets as are shown every night on Comedy Central.