Brainiac: Adventures In The Curious, Competetive, Compulsive World Of Trivia Buffs
Ken Jennings
Read November-December 2007
Copy borrowed from Ramsey County Public Library, White Bear Lake branch
Essay written March 28th, 2008
It's hard to imagine anyone reading this who isn't already familiar with the Ken Jennings story. Which is fine.
Good book, I guess, in general, although I can't think of anything spectacular enough about it to mention here. The chapters about his actual "Jeopardy!" experiences were far more interesting than the chapters about trivia and the trivia world separate from the show. Quiz bowl, NTN, Stevens Point, blah blah blah. What I want to know is: is Alex Trebek a good kisser?
Ken Jennings is the first person to admit that he (Ken Jennings) is not an interesting person. He was just fortunate enough to find the thing in the world that he was incredibly good at, better than everybody else in the world in fact, except for Brad Rutter. And that thing being so high profile, he earned a lot of recognition for it. Good for him. I'm jealous.
It was a fast read, which was nice. Not a lot of non-fiction books can hold my attention so well. Jennings managed, but then he had the advantage of my already knowing his story and feeling in some delusional way like I was a part of it because I watched his fascinating game show run.
As a side note, I once read online where somebody described how much fun it was to watch Ken Jennings play "Jeopardy!" because he didn't ring in when he knew the correct response; he rang in when he knew he was about to know the correct response. That was a great description, and I can't think of another player I've ever seen who played that way. Jennings you could actually see him parsing the clue together and flipping through the card catalog of his mind and solving the riddle, all in the space of a few seconds. That was remarkable.
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