BobHarris.com - Up Next in the Festival of Gratitude: The Dodgers

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

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Up Next in the Festival of Gratitude: The Dodgers

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Tuesday, 17 July 2007

I'd also like to say a belated public thanks to the Los Angeles Dodgers, who stunned this blog and a small swarm of guests with not just a primo batch of seats behind home plate, but a personal escort and pre-game field passes, allowing us to tromp around the edges of the field itself while the pros were taking warmups.

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When I was a kid in Cleveland in the 1970s, Dodger Stadium was this unimaginably faraway place where it never rained and the team never sucked and the players seemed friendly and the stands were filled with people from TV.

Sure enough, we got a perfect night, the Dodgers were playing for first place, and while we were hanging out, closer Takashi Saito wandered by to greet a Japanese guest near us. Then Dodgers manager Grady Little wandered over for a quick chat with us all, and about five seconds later I started noticing the stands behind me filling with recognizable faces. So this was exactly what I had imagined about 35 years earlier. I wondered briefly if I was actually still eight years old and only daydreaming.

Anyhow, this whole thing was unexpected and severely cool, and I've been meaning to grab a minute and say how much I appreciated it for weeks. So to Ellen and the entire Dodgers front office: thanks from all of us for a wonderful, memorable, terrific evening.