Angry Optimist: The Life and Times of Jon Stewart
by Lisa Rogak is an audible book I picked up from the library. I have always enjoyed Jon Stewart's comedy and wit especially when it came to politics. He spared no one!
This book takes the reader on a journey through Jon's life from the very beginning. It is a personal look at the man, his education, studies, jobs, and his career path that lead him to the Daily Show.
Very informative and interesting. ( )

Fun read and nice insights into Stewart and how his show was made. ( )

My wife bought this for me, knowing I'm a big fan of Jon Stewart. Unfortunately, this was too superficial and lacking in any true insight to give this fan much to sink his teeth into. The author reports on but never really understands her subject. ( )

This is essentially an unauthorized biography of Jon Stewart, which includes a lot of background on The Daily Show. I learned quite a bit of trivia about both, but the story they tell together is quite an engrossing one. Jon Stewart and The Daily Show have certainly had an outsize impact on popular culture and the engagement of young people with politics, and that's a fascinating subject to delve into more deeply. This book does a good job of balancing the humorous with the serious.
The only downside is that she clearly had a dearth of direct material from Mr. Stewart himself, so some of the quotations were repeated, and it occasionally felt like she was reaching a bit to fill in the blanks regarding what he thinks of where he is and has been.
Definitely recommended for fans of both Jon and also of Stephen Colbert, as he gets a fair amount of page time too. ( )

Still have my crush on Jon Stewart after reading this biography, but also learned that he is basically me if I were funny and successful, so that was interesting. As far as the book itself goes, I feel that Lisa Rogak should learn some synonyms for the word "admitted," because there were sections where people admitted things on every single page for several pages in a row. I had a lot of déjà vu, too, because the timeline skipped back and forth; in at least 3-5 places Rogak reused quotes from earlier in the book, and this is just not long enough a book for that to work. Summary: Jon Stewart is fabulous and his life story is excellent material for a biography, even if that biography could use slightly better organization.