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Loading... Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy!by Bob Harris
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.  kwskultety | Jul 4, 2023 |   The book also looks at the memory techniques he used, and at his personal life. It is often laugh-out-loud funny and often very touching and profound. After finishing this book, I watched Jeopardy! last night with new eyes. If you like the show, you must read this! (  ) LynnB | Feb 17, 2021 | Thoroughly enjoyable read if you're a Jeopardy fan. 3 stars (  ) arubabookwoman | Mar 20, 2020 |  ) Skybalon | Mar 19, 2020 | ) trilliams | May 30, 2015 |
 Harris has been, among other things, a stand-up comic, and it shows in his book, in lively phrases and an ear for the incongruous.
A.: This is the story of a working-class guy from Ohio with little real knowledge of Ambidextrous Presidents, Things Made from Rubber, and hundreds of other categories, but who nonetheless plunges so far into cramming for Jeopardy! that it changes his relationships, bends his worldview, and literally leads him to the ends of the earth, trying to understand it all. Q.: What is Prisoner of Trebekistan? Welcome to a world where obscure information is crucial to survival, vast sums of cash are at stake, and milliseconds can change not just a game but the course of your entire life. (Plus, you could win two Camaros and enough Bon Ami cleanser to scrub a small nation.) Prisoner of Trebekistanis Bob Harris’s hilarious, insightful account of one man’s unlikely epic journey throughJeopardy!, gleefully exploring triumph and failure, the nature of memory, and how knowledge itself can transform you in unpredictable ways—all against the backdrop of the most popular quiz show in history. InPrisoner of Trebekistan, Bob chronicles his transformation from a struggling stand-up comic who repeatedly fails theJeopardy!audition test into an elite player competing against the show’s most powerful brains. To get there, he embarks on a series of intense study sessions, using his sense of humor to transform conventional memory skills into a refreshingly playful approach to learning that’s as amusing as it is powerful. What follows is not only a captivating series of high-stakes wins and losses onJeopardy!, but also a growing appreciation of a borderless world that Bob calls Trebekistan, where a love of learning reigns and the smarter you get the more you realize how much you don’t yet know. Filled with secrets that only a veteran contestant could share—from counterintuitive game strategies to Jedi-like tactics with theJeopardy!signaling device—Prisoner of Trebekistanalso gives you the chance to play along with the actual clues that led to victory or defeat in high-level tournaments, plus candid, moving reflections on how the games affected Bob’s offstage life—and vice versa. Not only an irresistible treat forJeopardy!fans,Prisoner of Trebekistanis a delight for anyone who loves a rollicking tale that celebrates the unpredictability of life and the sneaky way it has of teaching us the things that really matter. No library descriptions found. |
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Wikipedia in English (7)
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I won't--because there are other books that do it also, and this book doesn't deserve any stars. I'm not sure what I disliked more; his awful attempt at humor every few sentences (for example, Harris is giving a hint on what type of categories to expect on the 4th of July--he mentions "Betsy Ross", "Fort McHenry" and "Things That Look Cool Blowing Up". Ugh), the fact that it took too long to get thru the book due to the endless recounting of almost EVERY question on EVERY game he played, complete with clue and answer in the form of a question, or the fact that some of his humor actually WAS phrased in the form of a question.
One chapter where the author describes his childhood is constantly interrupted with the story of a receipt from a rubber manufacturer, and his musings about what was purchased there years ago (since he forgot). Annoying!!!! Later on, the receipt is brought up AGAIN with the final answer. Just in case you have a masochistic streak, and want to read this book---I won't be telling you the item, to avoid spoiling the little surprise for you.
I can't even feel sympathy for his ill sister, because the way he describes her chronic pain and sickness is....well; too glib. Harris calls himself a comedian, but I say he is someone who needs to stop the schtick and act like a normal person. A writer he is not. He would've been better off getting a ghost writer, someone to cut through all the crap and create an enthralling tale of what it actually is like to be a contestant on Jeopardy.
Enough of this. I need a shower to wash the dreck off me.