Publisher's Weekly has named 'America: The Book' by Jon Stewart as Book of the Year. Stewart, best known as the host of Comedy Central's 'The Daily Show,' a humorous take on the day's news, wrote the book as a takeoff on school text books that he read growing up as a child.

Publisher's Weekly called the book, 'a serious critique of the two-party system, the corporations that finance it and the 'spineless cowards in the press' who 'aggressively print allegation and rumor independent of accuracy and fairness.'' It also added, 'in a year defined by political polemics, it seems fitting that PW's Book of the Year be one in which the authors survey the entire political system and laugh.'

'America: The Book' was not without controversy. Wal-Mart, the country's largest retailer, refused to stock the books due to a page that depicted the faces of the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court pasted on naked bodies. The facing page showed nine robes and urged readers to help the justices regain their dignity by giving them each the appropriate robe. Despite Wal-Mart's refusal to sell the book, it sold well over a million copies and topped the 'New York Times' best seller list.