The secular progressives deeply love Jon Stewart as a persuasive teller of truths. The proof came again in last Sunday's New York Times Book Review, in which best-selling novelist Jodi Picoult was asked "What’s the one book you wish someone else would write?"
She picked Stewart to write a book on how America is unfortunately tangled in "archaic" religious ideologies that prevent the nirvana that is liberalism:
One that explores why our country is so contentiously divided along the fault line of religion — a construct meant to unite, but that more often creates schisms. All the hot-button political issues in this country — abortion, reproductive rights, gay rights, the death penalty — all have ideological roots in religious beliefs that are often archaic or that have been cherry-picked to support specific points of view. I hope that same book can explain why our country, which was founded on religious freedom, so often finds itself tangled up in the screen that should separate church and state. Also, I would like Jon Stewart to write it, because he has a way of swiftly illuminating the truth when you think you’re just there to be entertained.
Picoult also announced she would "probably faint" if Obama read one of her books, but it's the NRA that really needs her:
If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?
I would be honored if the president read “Nineteen Minutes,” the book I wrote about a school shooting. (O.K. In truth, I wouldn’t just be honored. I’d probably faint.) It addresses what happens when bullying is ignored by schools, and what it means to be a kid who feels marginalized, and why the media is fostering future school shootings by focusing their 24/7 coverage not on the victims, but on the shooter. (This is obviously done for ratings, but may in fact be what makes another kid on the fringe think: “Hmm. No one notices me, but maybe this is how to get my 15 minutes of fame.”) Most importantly, the book illustrates the staggering emotional cost of a school shooting — something that is routinely left out of pro-Second Amendment arguments against gun control. Come to think of it, maybe the president isn’t the one who needs to read this book. Maybe I could require the head of the N.R.A. to read it instead?
