Apocalypse How

by Rob Kutner
Running Press Book Publishers
Reviewed by Chris Buchner

For years, scientists and religions have warned us all that the end is coming. Life as we know it will end, and we’ll either cease to exist, fly upwards, plummet down below, or be reborn as a cockroach, depending on your particular view. Well, now you don’t have to face the end alone! Be it nuclear holocaust, the 40-year flood, or alien robot overlord invaders from the planet Xenu, Apocalypse How is the book for you.

Rob Kutner, a writer for Comedy Central’s The Daily Show With Jon Stewart takes a satirical look at survival in the end of times. From styling your new fallout shelter home to be both aesthetically pleasing to you while foreboding to others to planning your financial future in a world where nations and money have no more meaning, the book has it all and delivers them in clever, funny ways. Probably one of the best things Kutner does is pepper his writings with the various scenarios presented by both science and religion in the most casual of manners. The sheer number of these would amaze.

Fans of The Daily Show, its publication America: the Book, of which Kutner was also a contributor, and its sister show The Colbert Report will recognize some of the gags and phrases from each of them, adding the appeal of familiarity and a sense of where Kutner is coming from. And, if you find you’re too busy trying to escape from radioactive mutant cannibals to sit and read everything in the book, each page is loaded with images comprised of photography and graphic art. They serve to not only decorate the page, but to accompany the topics being discussed. Diagrams, graphs, charts…everything for the illiterate survivalist on the go.

While you’re sitting in your fortified underground bunker in the middle of the badlands and there’s not much carnage and destruction going on outside, you may want to pull up your chair made up of old tires while eating your Tumbleweed Surprise and enjoy Apocalypse How. It may not save you from the nuclear blast, but you can certainly use it to enjoy the fallout afterward (and find the perfect outfit to go with your new glowing powers!).