BobHarris.com

Books! Actual books!

"A rollicking ride of intellectual discovery and emotional growth... his comic timing never fails"

-- The Wall Street Journal

"Pulls you in like a good sports story"

-- The New York Times Book Review

"Endearingly frank... jubilant... lighthearted and fast-paced"

-- New York Newsday

"A surprisingly touching memoir"

-- Entertainment Weekly

"Snappy and informative"

-- Associated Press

"Effortlessly funny and informative... tender, human, and very wise... A must for anyone who loves Jeopardy!, or has ever seen it, or is breathing."

-- Joss Whedon, creator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

"I haven't seen Jeopardy! since I was a kid, and yet I was charmed and amused by Bob Harris's fascinating and surprisingly suspenseful book. Through sheer force of personality, he takes this brainy TV show and makes it funny and easy to relate to."

-- Ira Glass, creator and host, This American Life

"A surprisingly intimate, entertaining book."

-- Orson Scott Card, 4-time Hugo Award winner, author of Ender's Game

"Funny, enlightening -- and just might help you win a million bucks on Jeopardy!"

-- A. J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All

"A masterful job of describing the feel of Jeopardy! in the heat of battle... I knew Bob was a great guy and a fantastic Jeopardy! player. Now I've found that he's also a wonderful writer. I think I'm starting to hate him."

-- Brad Rutter, top money-winner in Jeopardy! history

Books I'm Getting

Who Hates Whom:
Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts,
and Various Things Blowing Up —
A Woefully Incomplete Guide™

“Revelatory... Harris's sly wit and infectious curiosity make understanding world chaos fascinating... witty, horrific, and necessary.”

— Boston Globe

"Brave... irreverent... charges into the thick of the globe's myriad simmering wars... hilariously relaxed."

— New York Observer

"Only Bob could make a user’s guide to our increasingly hostile world this absorbing, this breezy, and—ultimately—this hopeful.”

— Ken Jennings, author of Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs

“Fascinating, enlightening, and surprisingly: NOT TOTALLY DEPRESSING. A gimlet-eyed look at the world we endure that’s also suitable for enjoying with a gimlet.”

— John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise
and correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

"All three [presidential] candidates should read all three of these [recommended] books, but McCain gets first crack at Bob Harris's "Who Hates Whom“... a lighthearted overview of the insurrections and civil wars in the world today."

— Steven Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought, in the New York Times Book Review

Main

Previous Polls

See, they played it like that

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Polls

Wednesday, 05 July 2006

When I was a kid, you had to call a trick shot beforehand, or it didn't count...

When the GOP finally does cut U.S. troops in Iraq, what will they call it?

Proof That Bush Never Planned A Permanent Military Presence

217

52.5%

Negative Redeployment Toward Ultimate Victory

147

35.6%

Unphased Rapid Re-Iraq-ification

9.7%

Failed Occupation With Honor

2.2%

So with the Iraq thing already costing hundreds of billions, the military overstretched, increasing troubles in Afghanistan, and plans for upcoming war with Iran still floating around, not to mention a National Guard which is also now supposed to be able to protect the Mexican border and help out with the next hurricane disaster to strike the red states... what the heck can Chimpy do about N. Korea? Take the poll.

Curiously, the public is not yet willing to call them "opera monkeys"

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Polls

Monday, 26 June 2006

How will Bush supporters discount the massive anti-Bush protests in Austria?

Who cares what the French think? Vienna is French, right...? What?

204

43.8%

What do Austrians know about authoritarian rulers, anyway?

157

33.7%

Viennese guys have tiny sausages, har, har, har

12.4%

They're just a bunch of Sachertorte-eating, Lipizanner-stallion-loving opera monkeys... except for Arnold

10.1%

It's starting to look like a GOP-sponsored reduction of troops in Iraq might happen before long, despite all the heavy rhetoric to the contrary. But since they've just spent the last several years decrying any mention of such an idea as defeatist, Bush supporters will need to come up with some new terminology. What kind? Take the poll.

Capitalizing on tragedy, literally: it's the Halliburton way

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Polls

Tuesday, 20 June 2006

Why is NASA rushing Discovery to launch despite "relatively high" risk of catastrophe?

Halliburton has the contract on replacement space shuttles

164

58.2%

Astronauts tend to vote Democratic

24.5%

We're fighting them in earth orbit so we don't have to fight them here

14.2%

Mohammed Atta once met with an Iraqi agent somewhere in deep space

3.2%

Ah, but how will Chimpy's legion discount the large public protests of his arrival in Austria?

Take the poll (although you may have to look for it, depending on which template you've got up just now).

Ken Mehlman squeezed by Karl Rove

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Polls

Monday, 19 June 2006

Which Republican is least likely to get one of the new full-face transplants?

Karl Rove, because he's already using several

36.1%

Ken Mehlman, because he'll never look straight in the mirror anyway

35.1%

John Bolton, because no other human face turns that shade of red

18.8%

Mike Brown, because his current face is already doing a heckuva job

10.1%

But why is NASA rushing the shuttle Discovery to launch despite its own experts' warnings about a "relatively high" risk of catastrophe?

Take the poll.

Doctors may attempt to surgically remove Joe Lieberman's lips from George W. Bush's whatever

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Polls

Sunday, 18 June 2006

Now that conjoined twins have been split, what impossibly-bound objects are next?

Joe Lieberman's lips from George W. Bush's... um... policies

169

72.5%

The Bush family and Rev. Sun Myung Moon

14.6%

Patrick Fitzgerald from Dick Cheney's future

7.7%

The Dow Jones Industrial Average from its level when Bush took office

5.2%

(For those who are curious about the Rev. Moon reference, just click on the link for more.)

Now that full-face transplants are becoming possible, I'm wondering about who's a good candidate — and who's not. Take the poll.

Plagiarists Long Past Self Parody: tomorrow's right-wing bestseller, today

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Polls

Friday, 16 June 2006

What will Ann Coulter's next book accuse liberals of being?

Plagiarists Long Past Self-Parody

277

45.2%

Chain-Smoking Harpies Incapable of Long-Term Relationships

194

31.6%

Illegal Voters Who Even Lie About Their Age

102

16.6%

Skinny Blondes

6.5%

Now that doctors have figured out how to separate those conjoined twins, what impossibly-bound objects will scientists take on separating next? Take the new poll.

Polls are back; Ann Coulter, performance artist

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Polls
Thursday, 15 June 2006
I'm rel