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
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“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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Two things I saw in Australia |
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Wednesday, 05 January 2005 |
I'll probably blather further in the coming days about this last trip south. Short version: Tasmania rules.
For now, though, there are only two sights I want to share, both
tsunami-related. The first: the generosity of the Australian people. Telethons,
volunteers, private contributions... really impressive. This was
typical: in Hobart, Red Cross volunteers at the annual Taste of
Tasmania festival made bins available to collect donations... and very
shortly had to go get more bins, because there simply were too many
donations to hold.
It's surely good to learn that US federal aid has risen by a
factor of ten. Too bad it's still only about one dollar per citizen. Truth is, as a percentage of GDP, American contributions, public
and private combined, are still less than one-fifth
of what Australia is giving, a quarter of Canada's aid, a tenth of
Sweden's, and about a twentieth of what those darn Norwegians are
chipping in.
Some might say (I've heard this several times, actually)
that this is understandable: America is, after all, on the other side of the world from the
tsunami-affected areas.
Hmm. Right. Because we all know that
Scandanavia borders on Sri Lanka, and that Canada's not only closer to the southern hemisphere than the U.S., but just dripping with excess wealth to throw around.
Just saying.
I'd like to think (if just for vanity) that readers of this site have
already chipped in considerably, and I'm only preaching to the
converted at this point. If so, swell. Bear with me. Here's the
second thing:
Less than 24 hours ago I was in the Melbourne airport, killing time in
a gift shop, chatting with a clerk... and there was a sharp, rhythmic,
human sound coming from behind me sounding very much like laughter. I
didn't think much of it, but it got louder... and louder... so I turned
around and glanced...
And it wasn't laughter.
It was a woman about my mother's age. Crying. The sort of full-body
convulsive cry you make when there's more pain than you can even try to
understand, and the sadness just seizes you entirely. She wasn't
covering her face or trying to negotiate with the pain or doing any of
the little social niceties we all do when we're sad but still conscious
of other people and able to be touched lightly by the graces of
friendship and comfort.
This was a woman about my mother's age who had just arrived from one of
the places you're reading about in the paper or seeing on TV. And she
was still being broken by the tragedy, right before my eyes.
Two solidly-built men about my age, whom I took to be her sons, were
walking with her. They were trying to be strong, but their own hands
were shaking even as they reached around the woman's shoulders or took
her by the hand. Her loss, whatever it was, was theirs, too. The
larger man was crying almost as hard as she was, but silently, trying
not to let his mother hear.
I watched the three of them walk away. Someday I may think of
something I could have said or done right then. I didn't, and I
haven't yet.
Ten feet away, another family was walking together slowly -- this time,
in a little knot of five people exchanging flowers and kisses and hugs,
all more tender and grateful and careful than the usual airport
affections. Someone here -- maybe everyone here -- had survived.
There was no real difference between these two families that I could see, other than random chance.
I'd suggest there's also no real difference between either of those familes and my own. Or, maybe, yours. If it all seems far away... I promise you, it's not.
I tell you all this because I'm giving more today to the relief
efforts than I did the other day. I don't know how much is enough.
Nothing is or can be. I don't know what's appropriate. But I'm giving
more than I did. I don't know if there is an appropriate, measured
response to one of the greatest tragedies in human history.
I only know that right this minute, there are millions of people still
in danger -- people who still need clean water and shelter and medical
supplies and somebody's god only knows what else. And giving more is
all I really know how to do.
If you haven't given anything yet, maybe you'll want to. If you have, maybe you'll want to give more.
So that's the second thing.
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