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A few modest proposals for reading from the Daily Show scribe.
Here's how Kevin Bleyer would like us to introduce him: "Emmy Award winner Kevin Bleyer is an Emmy Award-winning writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, for which he has won multiple Emmy Awards. In his new book, Me the People, he rewrites the Constitution of the United States of America in the hopes of helping our country form a more perfect union -- and in the hopes of earning a fat royalty check."
When we asked him to pick three favorites, he responded with a trio of books that aided him in that noble endeavor.
Buy Me the People by Kevin Bleyer
By Richard Beeman
"I owe Beeman a huge debt. Not only did he craft a compelling account of the months surrounding the Constitutional Convention of 1787 -- no surprise there, as Dr. Beeman is an esteemed history professor at the University of Pennsylvania -- but his book also revealed to me that while the men in Philadelphia may have been an 'assembly of demigods' -- I mean, sure, of course -- they were also much more than that: Everyday people, with human faults that could be empathized with, and learned from, and maybe even laughed at."
By Jonathan Swift
"Have I read this cover to cover? Yeah...I must have. Though to be honest, I can't truly recall if I did, or recall if it made me laugh, or if I was too far removed from the mores it was satirizing to appreciate its genius. But I would be remiss if I didn't give full faith and credit where credit is due. If not for Swift immodestly proposing that the Irish should sell their poor as food for the rich, who would dare let me propose that we kick Rhode Island off the map to make more room for Massachusetts? I plan to read it again for the first time, to remember how the master does it."
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
By John Bartlett
"Because as Mark Twain once said -- oh wait, what did he say again? Damn, it's on the tip of my tongue. Actually, maybe I'm thinking of Winston Churchill."
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