Last night, Jon Stewart’s guest was Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield (Harper, 4/21/15), the story of a group of  women who volunteered for a mission to help Rangers in Afghanistan, by making contact with a group they could not, Afghan women. Called “cultural support” rather than front theater combat troops, they were in fact on the front lines and the woman at the center of the story died.

Visibly moved, Stewart called it “a terrific book.”

A hot property in Hollywood, the film rights to the Ashley’s War were recently won at auction by Reese Witherspoon.

 
The interview was somewhat overshadowed by Stewart’s announcement that his last show will be Aug. 6.

Tomorrow night, the show will feature Dana Perino, former White House Press Secretary for George W. Bush and a political commentator for Stewart’s favorite punching bag, Fox News. Her book And the Good News Is…: Lessons and Advice from the Bright Side. (Hachette/Twelve; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print) is being published today.

On Thursday, Stewart will interview one of his favorites, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium. His new TV series StarTalk begins on Monday night on NatGeo. He is the author of several books, including, Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier (Norton, 2012), The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet (Norton, 2009) and Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries (Norton, 2007).

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