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Sto caricando le informazioni... Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs (originale 2006; edizione 2006)di Ken Jennings
Informazioni sull'operaBrainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs di Ken Jennings (2006)
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. Ken Jennings talks about his experiences being on Jeopardy! (over and over and over...) and what his life was like before, during and after his unprecedented run of wins. Interspersed with that, he talks about trivia: its history as a pastime, why it's interesting and whether it's worthwhile, and what kind of person turns that pastime into a full-blown obsession. (Jennings himself honestly seems to have been born to it. Some of the stories about what he was like even as a small child do kind of make me feel much better about the fact that I haven't won seventy-four games of Jeopardy! in a row. I like trivia, but I think I'm lacking some gene for it that this guy was born with.) He also talks a lot about particular trivia contests and events, including college bowl quizzes, rigged 1950s game shows, and a weird town in Wisconsin where the biggest event of the year is an insanely nitpicky fifty-four hour trivia event. I found some of the trivia-obsessed people and places he visits a lot more interesting than others, but overall this was an entertaining read, and I love the way he peppers the book with trivia questions to challenge the reader in a way that makes them part of the narrative. And his descriptions of his Jeopardy! career are especially interesting, and much more exciting than I might have expected from the fact that I already knew perfectly well how the whole thing went. I enjoyed this book. It chronicled the story of Ken Jennings in his Jeopardy! appearances back in 2004. Along the way, he talks about how he was raised into a trivia geek and about other meetings of trivia geeks around the United States. The author talks about how he met all these trivia legends, and on becoming a piece of trivia himself in a moment of introspection. It was all very interesting and entertaining. Interspersed throughout the book are trivia questions with answers at the end of the chapters. I guess even appearing on national television can get mundane after a while, but this guy takes it all in stride.
Jennings is a very charming, insightful writer. Jennings offers his own unique philosophy on trivia: in an era of specialization, trivia is not trivial; it allows us to know a little bit about a lot of things. Jennings's prose is competent enough to keep even the trivia-impaired turning the pages in this survey of his nerdy avocation's lore and history. [T]he former computer programmer is a charmingly self-deprecating guide to the subculture of esoterica.
The competitor who became the longest running champion on "Jeopardy!" offers a look at the human fascination with trivia, from the pop culture of the past to such modern-day phenomena as Trivial Pursuit, that celebrates the glory of the useless fact. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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This is Ken Jennings memoir of his months' long run in 2003 as Jeopardy champion during which he won more than $2 million. Interspersed is a history of trivia fads and games over the years, as well as interviews and stories about famous and not-so-famous trivia celebrities, such as the inventor of the Trivial Pursuit game, or people associated with the various College Bowl games.
The book is well-written and quite entertaining. As a bonus, in each chapter Jennings embeds 10 trivia questions. I was quite pleased with myself at usually being able to answer at least 5 of them--Alas not quite Jeopardy champ material.
3 stars ( )