Nonfiction Book Reviews

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America: The Book by Jon Stewart and the Writers of The Daily Show
Warner Books, September, 2004
Hardcover, 221 pages
ISBN: 0446532681
Ordering information:
Amazon.com

America: The Book
by Jon Stewart and the Writers of The Daily Show

In addition to being hilarious, America the Book is a well-organized and well-planned book about our country and government. After going through the standard U.S. Government textbook, students in high school should then be given this book so they really understand how our government operates. Readers of this faux textbook will learn about important subjects like democracy, voting, lobbyists, political campaigns, Halliburton, the news media and of course, C-SPAN drinking games. A well-written foreword from former President Thomas Jefferson is also provided. The book also contains the notorious nude photographs of the Supreme Court Justices, which got the book banned from Wal-Mart's shelves. (Wal-Mart's censors clearly missed the robes that you can cut out and paste on the judges photographs to restore their dignity.) If only the Daily Show staff would actually release some of the books they describe at the end of the book: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Presents Get Ready for the Metric System and Jon Stewart's Anthology of Public Domain Victorian Erotica. Perhaps they will at least write a sequel to the America: the Book, which offers something that's laugh-out-loud funny on every single page.

--Greg Knollenberg

The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker
HarperBusiness, October, 2004
Hardcover, 448 pages
ISBN: 0060742445
Ordering information:
Amazon.com

The Daily Druckere
by Peter F. Drucker

Peter F. Drucker, a highly respected business strategist and thinker, offers a collection of his ideas in The Daily Drucker for readers to use for inspiration and motivation. Drucker has written dozens of books which have been required reading for world leaders like Winston Churchill to executives running successful business like Hewlett Packard, Merck, Ford, Proctor & Gamble, General Electric and Motorola. Drucker says this book is an answer to the question he is often asked, "Which book of yours should I read first?" Drucker writes that The Daily Drucker "presents in organized form--and directly from my own writings--a key statement of mine, followed by a few lines, also from my own works, of comment and explanation, on topics ranging across a great many fields of my work: management, entrepreneurship; decision making; the changing workforce; the nonprofits and their management; and so on." At the bottom of each of Drucker's 366 entries readers will find an action point that tells them exactly how to put Drucker's ideas into use. This is a great book for the busy executive that needs to focus and for the nonprofit manager who has so much to do he can't even figure out where to start. For those new to Peter Drucker's crisp and practical advice, the Daily Drucker will make a great beginning.

Nonfiction Book Reviews
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Nonfiction Book Reviews

America: The Book by Jon Stewart and the Writers of The Daily Show

The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker