BobHarris.com - The NY Daily News visits Trebekistan

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

Book Blog

The NY Daily News visits Trebekistan

Tag it now -

Monday, 02 October 2006

This was a nice surprise today, with the bottom line being:

Down to earth and entertaining, even for non-Jeopardy! fans.

-- The New York Daily News

I'm struck, however, by the sheer volume of plain errors in most reviews so far. People who actually buy and read the book will recognize several in the Daily News piece, even though it's only five sentences long. (And I'm not objecting to being called a "struggling nobody." Absolutely. Aren't we all? Including lots of rich and famous people I can think of. And some presidents.)

I don't fault the reviewers. This may just be a function of how book reviewing is done -- apparently in considerable quantity, by reviewers who are deluged by a never-ending stream of incoming books. I imagine Lucille Ball working the infamous assembly line of chocolates in the classic "I Love Lucy" episode, only with entire books to deal with instead of desserts.

Seriously, could you do that job well for very long? I couldn't.

This explains why Entertainment Weekly briefly alleged (until they graciously printed a retraction this week) that I've won "hundreds of thousands" in untelevised back-alley trivia competitions, and why the Daily News now ambiguously implies I won 13 times on the show, which is of course false. Lucy is just shoving the whole of Prisoner of Trebekistan down her blouse, trying to keep up.

And that's one visual I probably won't be revisiting.