What I've Read: Earth

One of the benefits of being mauled financially by the IRS is it gives you tons of opportunities to do free things, like read books. And I'm on a tear this last month. My most recent conquest, the planet Earth. Well, at least, Earth as explained by the staff of The Daily Show.

If you're familiar with The Daily Show, you can imagine and almost anticipate a lot of the jokes and where the narrative thread goes in this book. It's intended as a reference guide for aliens who arrive on Earth after the human race is extinct, save for some traces of human DNA in Sweden and New Mexico.

The book surmises everything that has happened in most of human history but from a 10,000 foot level. It cracks wise about culture, religion, politics, society, the sexes, the continents and the ecosystem. Some things are just touched on briefly while others have a bit more bite. If I was surprised by anything, it's the occasional curse word that's thrown in. I'm so used to them being bleeped out on TV that to read the words and imagine them being said by the personalities is kinda strange.

The book is also a lot shorter and much faster read than I imagined, so plowing through it in a week should pose little problem to the common person, and makes me wonder whether reading the America book also written by the TDS staff is worth getting. This means it's got to be an even quicker read for you normal folk, since I have the reading and retention capacity of a garden gnome. As a bonus, the book also made HuffPo's list of 9 Books to Read for Earth Day 2011. So that was a pleasant bonus to discover last Friday as I finished it on the train ride to work.