Brainiac
Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs
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4.8 • 9 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A witty, charming, and engaging dive into trivia’s colorful history, from America’s highest-earning game show contestant of all time and host of Jeopardy!
“Insightful, informative, and written with a strong dose of humor and humility. . . . I loved this book.”—Will Shortz, crossword editor, The New York Times
Ken Jennings is trivia’s undisputed king—and as he traces his rise from anonymous computer programmer to nerd folk icon, he explores his newly conquered kingdom: the world of trivia itself.
Trivia, he has found, is centuries older than his childhood obsession with it. Whisking us from the coffeehouses of seventeenth-century London to the Internet age, Jennings chronicles the ups and downs of the trivia fad: the quiz book explosion of the Jazz Age; the rise, fall, and rise again of TV quiz shows; the nostalgic campus trivia of the 1960s; and the 1980s, when Trivial Pursuit® again made it fashionable to be a know-it-all.
Jennings also investigates the shadowy demimonde of today’s trivia subculture, guiding us on a tour of trivia across America. He goes head-to-head with the blowhards and diehards of the college quiz-bowl circuit, the slightly soused faithful of the Boston pub trivia scene, and the raucous participants in the annual Q&A marathon in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, “The World’s Largest Trivia Contest.” And, of course, he takes us behind the scenes of his improbable 75-game run on Jeopardy!
But above all, Brainiac is a love letter to the useless fact. (Who knew that there’s a crater on Venus named after Laura Ingalls Wilder? Ken Jennings, that’s who.) Engaging and erudite, Brainiac is an irresistible celebration of nostalgia, curiosity, and geeky obsession—in a word, trivia.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Did you know that Trivia was a Roman name for the goddess Hecate or that Jeopardy! tapes a week's worth of shows in a single afternoon? Jennings's record-setting 2004 six-month stint on the syndicated TV quiz show won him $2.5 million and instant fame as he landed on Letterman, Leno, Sesame Street and Barbara Walters's "Ten Most Fascinating People" list. Sprinkling trivia questions throughout his first book, the former computer programmer is a charmingly self-deprecating guide to the subculture of esoterica as he relates how he answered his first trivia question about the Wright brothers at four and made his chops on the ego-driven college quiz bowl circuit; confides how he mastered the "tricky" Jeopardy! buzzers; bonds with professional trivia writers; and describes being bested by the puzzler "Most of this firm's seven thousand seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year" (Jennings answered FedEx; H&R Block is correct). You don't have to be a couch potato to answer this: what's an eight-letter word for a highly entertaining, fast-paced read that demystifies "America's most popular and most difficult quiz show" while pondering how trivia is a cultural phenomenon that offers a tidy alternative to life's messiness as well as instant camaraderie between people from different walks of life?
Customer Reviews
A Tour Guide For All Quizzes, Not Just Televised Ones
I’ve been a Jeopardy fan since two years old, but recently, a lot of British YouTube channels caught my attention, and instead of going to see a doctor about it, I bought this book.
Those British YouTube channels are where pub quiz leagues post featured matches, and while Jeopardy is still appointment viewing for me, I loved how much more in-depth these quizzes were and wanted to know the history behind them—and whether it was wrong for an American to like them.
Thank you, Ken, for reassuring this diehard quiz fan that I can have my cake and eat it, too. I’ve now heard of so many interesting people, places, and events that Stevens Point, Wisconsin in April is as much a bucket-list travel destination as Culver City during a Tournament of Champions taping. If you love quizzing but are jealous that your British, Australian, or Indian friends get to have all the fun, this book can provide stateside alternatives. It also gives insight on how Jennings and his wife, Mindy, were able to keep the entire run a secret for half a year. That’s as entertaining as the run itself!
I’m glad to know that I can enjoy trivia in all forms and that non-televised quizzing gets as much attention as Jeopardy. Ken would be the host I’d most like to meet if I were on the show , and his passion for knowledge and way of communicating that is the reason why. The enthusiasm he shows in this book is still palpable nearly seventeen years later, and I’m a better Jeopardy fan because of it. Ken, if you ever read this, on behalf of all of us who don’t want to stop quizzing, thank you.