BobHarris.com - Warning: this post stops being about baseball halfway through

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

Antiwar.com

Warning: this post stops being about baseball halfway through

Tag it now -

Wednesday, 13 April 2005

God, how I love baseball. But Nomar's not hitting, half the Cubs' pitching staff seems to be injured, the Indians are mostly crap again, the Dodgers have traded away virtually every player I liked, and I simply can't get behind anything called the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Who's left to cheer?

Ntini!

That's who.

Even if you don't care about cricket, you might start cheering for this guy just from reading about him. And against the West Indies, he just turned in the best performance by any South African bowler, ever.

Besides which, I think one is ethically required to study any sport in which a writer can complain with a straight face about the losing side's "chronic no-ball problem."

Tell me the truth: do you not need to know what that means, right this minute? Oh, I think you do.

In conclusion, however, and again, I say: Ntini!

That is all.

(Yes, this is yet another cricket-related post. Start scrolling now! Quick, before your eyes reach the next sentence! No apologies. For a surprisingly small amount of extra money to the satellite TV people, there will now be a full year of international test cricket pumped into this very living room. Much of daily life here will now be conducted over the gentle clop of willow on leather, narrated in hushed tones for ten-hour stretches by three guys named Nigel, all wearing neckties that match no other human garment. Roll your eyes if you must, but I am in full-blown whee. Still, out of respect for you, dear reader, I'll try to keep these uncontrollable bits of glee down to a word or two -- like "Ntini!" -- when they henceforth occur.)