Any fan of Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" knows the host holds weekly guest author interviews on the Comedy Central news block.
Usually, the majority of authors come on the show promoting a book and Stewart is an expert on all items of the work.
However, a few have wondered, does he really have time to read every book cover to cover or does he simply skim through a few important chapters?
A Quora user claiming to be a previous "Daily Show" intern revealed not only the author selection process, but also that Stewart does indeed read through every book.
From Quora:
"There is a producer in charge of booking all guests, and she receives just gobs and gobs of mail from all sorts of authors, musicians, agents, etc. She splits everything up into "definite no," "give it some thought," and "we definitely want to interview this person" piles, and then dives in. She doesn't necessarily read/watch/listen to everything, but she gets a good sense of the guests that would make compelling interviews, and then discusses that list with Jon.
If somebody is chosen to come on the show, Jon does indeed read/listen to/watch that person's to-be-plugged material. Generally cover-to-cover. The man really is quite impressive in the amount of work he does for the show."
Wonder how large that "definite no" section gets.
Still unsure? Stewart told Terry Gross of NPR's "Fresh Air" last year that if he has the time, he will indeed read the book cover to cover.
From the NPR:
GROSS: Two people want to know if you actually read the books of the guests that you have on.
Mr. STEWART: I read the book's both, back front cover.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. STEWART: It depends on, you know, some weeks we have four books and they can be thick ones and, you know, historical nonfiction. But I read pretty quickly, and I try and read as much of the books as I possibly can. And I have a pretty good ability of getting through it, retaining a good deal of its information, for a four to six hour period.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. STEWART: And then having it disappear from my brain for the rest...
So, there you have it from Stewart himself. (Not that we'd expect the host to suggest he doesn't do his homework.)