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Actual Books
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
“Fascinating, enlightening, and surprisingly: NOT TOTALLY DEPRESSING.”
-- John Hodgman,
author, The Areas of My Expertise and correspondent for The Daily Show
"A rollicking ride of intellectual discovery and emotional growth... his comic timing never fails"
-- The Wall Street Journal
"A surprisingly touching memoir"
-- Entertainment Weekly
"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
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Home  Book Blog
Prisoner of Trebekistan
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If the Yale thingy wasn't cool enough, now there's this, and I'm jazzed:
Thanks to the discussion of memory techniques in Prisoner of Trebekistan, I've just been invited to speak to a cognitive science class at UCLA.
Neat!
When I was a kid, I was always told what to learn, but rarely how. Some of the stuff in Trebekistan, particularly around chapter nine, has a lot of the how and even some of the why and when.
One of the reasons I wrote the book is that I dearly want everybody to know how to remember stuff better. Learning how has made a big difference in my life. (Although if you saw me blow a big Final clue in last year's Ultimate Tournament of Champions, you know it hasn't been quite as much as I'd like.) The stuff I found out might help you or your family, too. Hope so.
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New York Newsday gives Prisoner of Trebekistan yet another fun review:
"Endearingly frank... a jubilant Mexican jumping bean of digressions and asides... Everything in Harris's memoir is lighthearted and fast-paced, even when it isn't."
That last sentence, I should explain, seems from context to mean that Trebekistan keeps its rhythm even when dealing with difficult subjects. I'd like to think so.
But let's just enjoy the sheer lunacy of that last sentence as written: it is, even when it's not. Doesn't even flinch, does it? Just hurls itself directly into the Looking Glass.
And if you've already finished Trebekistan, you're probably amused to notice Lewis Carroll looping back into the story yet again.
This is a completely Trebekistan thing to see.
If you're not sure what that means, you might want to read the book and see.
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Prisoner of Trebekistan just got a few more nice words:
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... makes you feel what it was like to be in the green room and at the lectern... a skilled storyteller... pulls you in like a good sports story.
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We taped this a while back, so I didn't realize it would be up right now.
If you're visiting somewhere in the distant future, enjoy your moving sidewalks, inexpensive moon shuttles, and ray guns which shoot colored beams of light. And your permalink for the interview is here.
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Forwarded by our good pal Emo, this entry from the National Geographic, describing suburban neighborhoods near the Cape of Good Hope being overrun by baboon hordes:
"They even know how to open doors. And once inside, they make a mess. They empty the fridge, ruin furniture, and defecate all over."
Isn't that what Anne Heche did once?
For those who missed it the first time around, here's a related video from a reading of Prisoner of Trebekistan, describing my own experience near the Cape:
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