As part of our celebration of the many authors Jon Stewart has featured during his 16 year tenure as host of The Daily Show, today we present his 2006 interview with movie critic Roger Ebert.

The book was The Great Movies II, but the conversation veered off in to some weird territory as they discussed Stewart’s upcoming gig as the host of the Oscars as well his checkered career as an actor. Giving one of his films,  Death to Smoochy the ultimate backhanded compliment, Ebert had written in his review, “To make a film this awful, you have to have enormous ambition and confidence, and dream big dreams.”

Potter fans rejoice! Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the next trilogy in the Harry Potter film series, is moving closer to the screen now that director David Yates has issued an open call for auditions to fill the role of Modesty. CNN reports that Yates is searching for a female actress aged 8-12, who could become a household name like Hermione.

The film trilogy, the first of which is due out on November 18, 2016, follows the story of Newt Scamander, played by Eddie Redmayne, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.

The Warner Bros. films, as Flickering Myth suggests, have a good chance of  replicating the look and feel of the HP movies. J. K. Rowling wrote the screenplay and the director, producer, production designer, and executive producer all worked on multiple HP films.

As we reported earlier, the movies are based on a Hogwarts textbook (a real edition of the fictional text was published in 2001, with a special charity edition out last month) and follows Scamander’s search for magical creatures.  IMDb neatly summarizes the plot: “The adventures of writer Newt Scamander in New York’s secret community of witches and wizards seventy years before Harry Potter reads his book in school.”

Continuing our celebration of the many authors Jon Stewart has featured during his tenure as host of The Daily Show, we present the following interview with Studs Terkel for his book, And They All Sang: Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey (Norton, 2005). He died 2 years after his interview, at age 96.

Terkel may have been, as he said, “deaf as a post,” but clearly his greatest joy was listening to ordinary people.

Today we continue our look at Jon Stewart’s coverage of books on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. As we noted earlier, after 9/11, Stewart began to feature authors on several topics he became known for, almost as if he were educating himself along with his audience.

One of this favorite targets has been tv news coverage. At the end of 2002, he interviewed Ann Coulter for the first (and only) time about her book Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right. Clearly in disagreement with her points (including that there “are several bad Republicans, but there are no good Democrats”), he ended by saying that talking to her felt  “like when I see something on National Geographic. I don’t understand, but I like to learn.”

Time warp note: Coulter mentions a LexisNexis search the way we would a Google search today.

The following year, he continued exploring the topic with several other authors, from conservatives Dick Morris (Off with Their Heads: Traitors, Crooks & Obstructionists in American Politics, Media & Business) and Bernard Goldberg (Arrogance: Rescuing America From the Media Elite) to Al Franken (Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right) and journalism professoe, Eric Alterman (What Liberal Media? The Truth About Biaxs and the News).

With Comedy Central’s The Daily Show on hiatus until next week and Jon Stewart’s impending exodus from the show coming on August 6, we’ve been looking at some of  the many authors Stewart has featured on the show.

Stewart often features authors he disagrees with, but sometimes they find common ground.

Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan appeared on th show in December of 2001 for her book about Ronald Reagan When Character Was King (Viking), Stewart disagreed  with her assessment of Reagan (“I still have my McGovern button”), but did not argue with her sense that, after 9/11, Geroge W. Bush showed signs go going from a dilletant to a leader.

In 2008. when she returned to talk about her book, Patriotic Grace: What It Is And Why We Need It Now, (HarperCollins) both were disillusioned with Bush. About the economic crisis, Noonan said the President was acting “more like a commentator on the events, rather than a leader of the events.” Stewart responded, “He seems like … it’s his senior year of college, it’s the last three months, and he’s been playing ultimate frisbee all week and they throw him out there and he’s just like, ‘What are we doing today? Economic collapse? What the hell, I”m out of here in three months, who cares.’ ”

Stewart ended by saying he is very upset by the lack of real discourse on important issues and asks for reassurance, Noonan expresses the hope that “This economic crisis will break this thing out of the stupid, small narrow rut we are in and maybe each of these men [Barack Obama and John MCCain who were running for President at the time] will come forward and be their best selves and make this campaign serious.”

We’ve been missing Jon Stewart’s coverage of books and authors while the Daily Show has been on a two-week hiatus. The show returns Monday, July 20. Then we have to face August 6, Stewart’s final day as host and hope that his replacement will continue the tradition.

To tide us over, we’ve been digging around in the archives for some of our favorite moments. Since today is a Friday, we thought it was a good day for a light hearted segment from 2009 when Jeff Bezos struggled mightily to convince Stewart that the Kindle is a good thing (WARNING: Includes regular maniacal laughter. Viewer discretion is advised.):

On Day 3 of our tribute to Jon Stewart for his focus on books and reading during his 16-year tenure on the Daily Show, we look at his interviews with a woman he calls “one of my favorite authors of all time,” Sarah Vowell.

Her next book, Lafayette in the Somewhat United States (Penguin/Riverhead) won’t be published until October, well after Stewart exits the show on August 6th, but he used the Fourth of July holiday as an excuse to feature it, even though he couldn’t use his signature line, “It’s on the bookshelves now!”

Vowell used the opportunity to elicit a rare hug from Stewart, by tricking him in to re-enacting a tender moment between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

Vowell appeared for the first time on the show in 2002 for her third book The Partly Cloudy Patriot. Stewart featured her for every one of her books since, often twice (once for the hardcover and again for the paperback).

Her funniest and most poignant appearance, however, was not with Stewart, but with his stand-in John Oliver and not for her own book, but for one by her good friend, David Rakoff who died of cancer weeks before he finished his novel Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish (RH/Doubleday). That appearance turned the book into a best seller.

A full list of Vowell’s appearances on the Daily Show, with links, after the jump.

(more…)

As part of our tribute to Jon Stewart for his mpact on books and reading during his 16-year tenure on the Daily Show, today we look at an author who has appeared several times on the show, Walter Isaacson.

His first appearance was in 2003, when he was leaving his position as head of CNN. Stewart took the opportunity to knock the network, something that has become a recurring Stewart theme.

Isaacson also mentioned that he was at work on his third book, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, which he come back to discuss the following October. In 2009, he was back for his next book, a biography of Albert Einstein.

Two years later, he revealed some behind-the-scenes moments from his interviews with Steve Jobs while writing Jobs’ biography (which is the basis for the movie coming in this October).

In less than a month. on August 6, Jon Stewart signs off from the Daily Show. You can binge on the last 16 years via the Web site “Your Month of Zen.”

.

Stewart is beloved in the book industry for the number of serious books he has featured and his ability to sell them to his audience.

In his early years, however, Stewart rarely featured authors and when he did, they were celebrities and/or comedians. The first was Joy Behar who stopped by as part of her book tour for Joy Shtick. That same year Stewart interviewed Donny Osmond for his memoir Life Is Just What You Make It.

It wasn’t until two years later that he featured his first political books, both of them satirical, P. J. O’Rourke‘s The CEO of the SOFA and Jeff Greenfield’s  Oh, Waiter, One Order of Crow!

As Stewart himself predicted at the time, 9/11 changed the course of the show, and that included his turning to authors on more serious political issues. His first guest after 9/11 was New York Times columnist, Frank Rich. In the next year, he began to hit his stride, starting with Sebastian Junger in January discussing his Vanity Fair article on Afghanistan (later expanded into the 2010 book War).

On a lighter note that year, Stewart interviewed author Elmore Leonard for his book Tishomingo Blues (HarperCollins/Morrow, 2002) and clearly had a grand time watching as Leonard stole the show.

Although the movie based on The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones, by Cassandra Clare was considered a box office flop, ABC Family thought it could have a new life as a TV series, titled Shadowhunters,

It’s not coming until next year, but fan flames will be kept burning in the just-launched official site ShadowHuntersTV.com.

New trade paperback editions of the six titles in the series as well as of the 3-part prequel series, Infernal Devices are coming in September.

In March, Clare launches a sequel to the series, beginning with Lady Midnight  (S&S/ Margaret K. McElderry) set five years after the Mortal Instruments.

The 13-episode series Zoo, based on the novel by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge premieres on CBS at 9 p.m. on Tuesday, June 30. Entertainment Weekly gives is a solid B and calls it a ‘”worthy small screen supplement to a  Jurassic World summer.”

Tie-ins:

Zoo

James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge

Hachette/Grand Central, May 26, 2015
Trade Paperback, $15.00 USD, $17.00 CAD
Mass Market, $8.00 USD, $9.00 CAD
Debuting in theaters is Big Game, starring Samuel L. Jackson, playing the President of the U.S. in a role the New York Post calls the actor’s “campiest outing since Snakes on a Plane.” It is based on Big Game Daniel Smith, , (Scholastic/Chicken House)

Marvel and a few other studios are sitting out the upcoming San Diego Comic-Con, causing Variety to  declare, “TV Takes Over Comic-Con as Film Studios Back Out” (perhaps they haven’t noticed that TV seems to be taking over everything these days).

Further, they say this offers “upstart digital networks looking to compete with their broadcast counterparts” an opportunity to get more exposure.

One of those upstarts is Amazon Studios, appearing at the show for the first time this year with two series, one of which is The Man in the High Castle, adapted from the iconic alternative reality novel by Philip K. Dick. A special screening of the first two episodes at Comic-Con on Friday, July 10 will also be live-streamed on Entertainment Weekly‘s site.

The series is directed by Ridley Scott, known for 1982 movie Blade Runner based, if somewhat loosely, on another iconic book by Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

The first, rather obscure, trailer to promote that event has just been released:

Comic-Con will also feature a first look at at Outcast, the upcoming Cinemax series based on the comics by Robert Kirkman and Paul Azaceta.

Orange is the New Black, season three, debuted on Netflix two weeks ago, moving the memoir  by Piper Kerman it is based on (RH/Spiegel & Grau) back onto best seller lists.

The series is known for bringing attention to other books as well. Entertainment Weekly points out that the new season is a bit lighter on specific titles (all the books in the prison library are burned after a bed bug is discovered in a copy of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH).

But there’s plenty of titles to mine from previous series for a book display.

Season Two Reading List

Season One (BuzzFeed)

The series has been renewed for a fourth season.

Libraries that bought Holly Madison’s new memoir, Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny (Harper/Dey Street Books; HarperCollins Publishers and Blackstone Audio) are seeing soaring holds.

Madison, once a Playboy bunny and now a reality TV star, is pushing hard for a TV movie deal, telling E! she hopes Lily James (of Cinderella and Downton Abbey fame) would star.

Of course, all of this may just be wishful thinking by Madison, but she is a skilled promoter and already has a TV show (after Dancing with the Stars and The Girls Next Door), so she may get her wish, if not her fairy tale casting.

Hold ratios are deep in the red where libraries bought lightly and attention is still going strong with an appearance today on Good Morning America and reaction coming from Hugh Hefner in response to her allegations about life in the Playboy Mansion.

The beloved memoirs by Gerald Durrell (Lawrence’s younger brother), The Corfu Trilogy are set to become a 6-part TV series, commissioned by ITV in the U.K. Deadline reports that filming is expected to begin this summer.

The series, titled after the first book in the trilogy, My Family And Other Animals (1956), is about Durrell’s childhood prior to WW II, when his mother moved the family to the Greek island of Corfu. There he learned to love wildlife, leading to his career as a well-known naturalist and zookeeper. The other books in the series are  Birds, Beasts, And Relatives (1969) and The Garden Of The Gods (1978).

Two other adaptations have been made of the first book, a TV series in 1987 by the BBC and A&E and a 90 minute made for TV movie in 2005.