Librarian bans Jon Stewart text

Library officials in two southern Mississippi counties have banned Jon Stewart’s bestselling “America (The Book)” over the satirical textbook’s nude depictions of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices.

“I’ve been a librarian for 40 years and this is the only book I’ve objected to so strongly that I wouldn’t allow it to circulate,” said Robert Willits, director of the Jackson-George Regional Library System of eight libraries in Jackson and George counties.

Wal-Mart also has declined to stock the book because of the page, which features the faces of the justices superimposed on naked bodies. The facing page has cutouts of the justices’ robes, complete with a caption asking readers to “restore their dignity by matching each justice with his or her respective robe.”

The book by Stewart and the writers of “The Daily Show,” the Comedy Central fake-news program he hosts, was released in September. It has spent 15 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list for hardcover nonfiction, and was named book of the year by Publishers Weekly, the industry trade magazine.