Undercover comedian: getting away with fake books on New York's subway

How would you react if you saw someone reading Getting Away With Murder for Dummies on public transport? Comic Scott Rogowsky took some pretend, provocative book covers on an underground operation

A few years ago, self-described “very white guy” Scott Rogowsky was reading a book by his friend – fellow comedian Baratunde Thurston – called How to Be Black. “It’s a provocative title and the design was very bold - white lettering against black background,” Rogowsky says. “I remember reading it on the subway and thinking how strange it must appear to others, seeing me reading this book.”

Boom – the idea was planted. Rogowsky would create numerous fake, rude, and often shocking book covers to see if he could “spark some reactions from an otherwise staid subway ridership. Mission accomplished!” he says cheerily. What resulted is a very popular two-minute video of Rogowsky mildly thumbing his way through titles including, Human Taxidermy: A Beginner’s Guide; Gone Girl 2: Even Goner; Trump: The Art of Fucking Your Daughter (a mashing of Donald Trump’s book Art of the Deal and his creepy comments about his own child); and a book about rimming, complete with a (fake) recommendation from Joan Didion (“I’ll never eat ass the same way!”)

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