Rock This!

Pegged as the new Eddie Murphy, the new Richard Pryor--even the new Lenny Bruce--Chris Rock is one of the smartest, funniest, and most widely appealing comedians today. With "an appeal that crosses racial boundaries" (Entertainment Weekly), Chris Rock's book "crawls into the minds of the lazy, women, blacks, and whites, uncovering driving forces that are all too real in modern society" (Variety).

Rock This reads like a collection of Chris Rock's routines, and that's the book's only flaw. A little more of Rock himself would be nice--maybe something that's a cross between an autobiography and Rock's routine transcribed for print. That said, Rock This is a very funny book. The young comedian speaks his mind about a variety of topics: race, sex, drugs, O. J. Simpson, and relationships between men and women. Occasionally profane and wrong-headed, most of the time Rock's wry observations--his assessments of the Reverend Al Sharpton and the Reverend Jesse Jackson are dead-on--make you nod your head in acknowledgment of their truth, even as you shake with laughter.