BobHarris.com - Friday Tobagoblogging

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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Friday Tobagoblogging

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Friday, 28 April 2006

Haven't pudublogged in a while, but I suspect they'd enjoy the island I just spent a week exploring. (Rough life, I know.)

Until I actually get around to writing up my thoughts, here are a few pics for the curious:

Tobago from the air, yesterday morning, facing south, from an airplane passing over the Buccoo Reef.

Englishman's Bay on the island's leeward coast. If you ever need to stare into space for a few hours, thinking about nothing but how the air feels on your back, this is a very good spot for it.

French angelfish near Store Bay, flanked by what I believe are immature clown wrasses. But I know very little about tropical fish, so I should really write "blue-faced servingtrayfish, plus a bunch of yellow panicdarters." That's what I actually called them when I was in the water.

Americans rarely visit Tobago for some reason, but it's a fairly popular destination for folks from Canada, Europe, and elsewhere in the Caribbean. There have been some serious concerns lately about safety in the news (scroll down past Jamaica, which is also kinda how you find Tobago itself) and in various government travel advisories (e.g. Canada, Australia, the UK), but the major problems seem mostly to be on the sister island of Trinidad. (Which, you notice, I reluctantly decided not to visit.)

For now, Tobago still seems cool if you don't make yourself a target by large displays of wealth or perhaps by screaming "I curse you, steel pan music!" at the top of your lungs. I walked alone all the time and never once felt my feelers twinging. Obviously, the tourists mentioned in the government advisories had a different experience.

That said, many of the reefs are in real trouble, American-style franchising is on its way, and the inability of the police to handle increasing drug-related crime is so bad that they've actually asked the Colombian cops for advice. Oy.

So I did have a sinking feeling the whole time, sensing that I was seeing an island which won't be the same in the not-too-distant future.

Somewhat like Earth itself, the way things are going.

More later. Gotta unpack and stuff...