The Answer Is . . .
The Answer Is . . .

Author: Alex Trebek

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Published: 2020-07-21

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1982157992

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A RECOMMENDED SUMMER READ BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, TIME, AND NEWSWEEK Longtime Jeopardy! host and television icon Alex Trebek reflects on his life and career. Since debuting as the host of Jeopardy! in 1984, Alex Trebek has been something like a family member to millions of television viewers, bringing entertainment and education into their homes five nights a week. Last year, he made the stunning announcement that he had been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. What followed was an incredible outpouring of love and kindness. Social media was flooded with messages of support, and the Jeopardy! studio received boxes of cards and letters offering guidance, encouragement, and prayers. For over three decades, Trebek had resisted countless appeals to write a book about his life. Yet he was moved so much by all the goodwill, he felt compelled to finally share his story. “I want people to know a little more about the person they have been cheering on for the past year,” he writes in The Answer Is…: Reflections on My Life. The book combines illuminating personal anecdotes with Trebek’s thoughts on a range of topics, including marriage, parenthood, education, success, spirituality, and philanthropy. Trebek also addresses the questions he gets asked most often by Jeopardy! fans, such as what prompted him to shave his signature mustache, his insights on legendary players like Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer, and his opinion of Will Ferrell’s Saturday Night Live impersonation. The book uses a novel structure inspired by Jeopardy!, with each chapter title in the form of a question, and features dozens of never-before-seen photos that candidly capture Trebek over the years. This wise, charming, and inspiring book is further evidence why Trebek has long been considered one of the most beloved and respected figures in entertainment.

Who Is Alex Trebek?
Who Is Alex Trebek?

Author: Lisa Rogak

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2020-07-21

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1250773679

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

After a contestant wrote “We love you, Alex!” as his Final Jeopardy! answer, fans around the world quickly chimed in to proclaim their own love and support for beloved Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek. In the wake of his devastating cancer diagnosis, the moment provided the perfect opportunity to reflect on what the show — and the man – meant to them. It was no surprise, since millions of devoted viewers have long considered Alex Trebek to be a part of their daily lives ever since he began hosting the show in 1984. Now, bestselling biographer Lisa Rogak gives readers a look at Trebek's early life, his career, and his personal life throughout the years, drawing on many sources to tell his full story for the first time. There are many surprises, like the fact that Trebek was almost 50 when he discovered that he had a half brother, as well as the revelation that for a short time he actually dreamed of becoming a priest. The native Canadian also struggled with depression after the failure of his first marriage, and for years afterward he despaired of ever having a family of his own until he met the woman who would become his soulmate. Who Is Alex Trebek? is the first biography of the much-loved game show host, and as such, celebrates the man who has created a remarkable legacy that will live on in popular culture for generations to come.

Answers in the Form of Questions
Answers in the Form of Questions

Author: Claire McNear

Publisher: Twelve

Published: 2020-11-10

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 1538702312

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

What is the smartest, most celebrated game show of all time? In this insider's guide, discover the rich history of Jeopardy! -- the beloved game show that has shaped our culture and entertained audiences for years. Jeopardy! is a lot of things: record-setting game show, beloved family tradition, and proving ground for many of North America's best and brightest. Nearly four decades into its current edition, Jeopardy! now finds itself facing unprecedented change. This is the chronicle of how the show became a cross-generational touchstone and where it's going next. ANSWERS IN THE FORM OF QUESTIONS dives deep behind the scenes, with longtime host Alex Trebek talking about his life and legacy and the show's producers and writers explaining how they put together the nightly game. Readers will travel to bar trivia showdowns with the show's biggest winners and training sessions with trivia whizzes prepping for their shot onstage. And they'll discover new tales of the show's most notable moments-like the time the Clue Crew almost slid off a glacier-and learn how celebrity cameos and Saturday Night Live spoofs built a television mainstay. ANSWERS IN THE FORM OF QUESTIONS looks to the past -- and the future -- to explain what Jeopardy! really is: a tradition unlike any other.

The Jeopardy! Book
The Jeopardy! Book

Author: Alex Trebek

Publisher: Harper Perennial

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Provides background information on the show, anecdotes, and stories on the biggest winners.

Planet Funny
Planet Funny

Author: Ken Jennings

Publisher: Scribner

Published: 2019-07-09

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1501100602

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year The witty and exuberant New York Times bestselling author and record-setting Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings relays the history of humor in “lively, insightful, and crawling with goofy factlings,” (Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go Bernadette)—from fart jokes on clay Sumerian tablets to the latest Twitter gags and Facebook memes. Where once society’s most coveted trait might have been strength or intelligence or honor, today, in a clear sign of evolution sliding off the trails, it is being funny. Yes, funniness. Consider: Super Bowl commercials don’t try to sell you anymore; they try to make you laugh. Airline safety tutorials—those terrifying laminated cards about the possibilities of fire, explosion, depressurization, and drowning—have been replaced by joke-filled videos with multimillion-dollar budgets and dance routines. Thanks to social media, we now have a whole Twitterverse of amateur comedians riffing around the world at all hours of the day—and many of them even get popular enough online to go pro and take over TV. In his “smartly structured, soundly argued, and yes—pretty darn funny” (Booklist, starred review) Planet Funny, Ken Jennings explores this brave new comedic world and what it means—or doesn’t—to be funny in it now. Tracing the evolution of humor from the caveman days to the bawdy middle-class antics of Chaucer to Monty Python’s game-changing silliness to the fast-paced meta-humor of The Simpsons, Jennings explains how we built our humor-saturated modern age, where lots of us get our news from comedy shows and a comic figure can even be elected President of the United States purely on showmanship. “Fascinating, entertaining and—I’m being dead serious here—important” (A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically), Planet Funny is a full taxonomy of what spawned and defines the modern sense of humor.

Television Game Show Hosts
Television Game Show Hosts

Author: David Baber

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2015-06-14

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1476604800

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This unique work profiles the private lives and careers of 32 American game show hosts, including the originals (e.g., Bill Cullen, Peter Marshall), the classics (e.g., Bob Barker), and the contemporaries (e.g., Regis Philbin). Organized by host, each chapter includes birth and family information and a complete career history. The most significant developments of each host's early life and career are highlighted--complete with successes, failures, and scandals. Many of the biographies are accompanied by interviews with the host or his family and friends.

Prisoner of Trebekistan
Prisoner of Trebekistan

Author: Bob Harris

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2006-09-05

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 0307351505

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Welcome to the world of Jeopardy! 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. Prisoner of Trebekistan is Bob Harris’s hilarious, insightful account of one man’s unlikely epic journey through Jeopardy!, 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. Bob chronicles his transformation from a struggling stand-up comic who repeatedly fails the Jeopardy! 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 on Jeopardy!, 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 the Jeopardy! signaling device—Prisoner of Trebekistan also 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 for Jeopardy! fans, Prisoner of Trebekistan is 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.

Who Was Alex Trebek?
Who Was Alex Trebek?

Author: Pam Pollack

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2022-12-06

Total Pages: 113

ISBN-13: 0593383737

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Clue: A former journalist who became the beloved host of America's favorite game show and quiz competition. Answer: Who Was Alex Trebek?, the latest title in the #1 New York Times Best-Selling series. Born in Ontario, Canada, in 1940, Alex Trebek grew up listening to the radio and hoping to one day become a broadcaster. His dream became a reality when he was hired as a reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1961. Alex's composed nature and ability to skillfully improvise while on television eventually led to his role as the host of Jeopardy!, the biggest quiz game show in the United States. Alex not only earned numerous awards over the course of his thirty-six-year-long hosting career, but he also earned the admiration of the contestants on the show and dedicated viewers watching at home.

Brainiac
Brainiac

Author: Ken Jennings

Publisher: Villard

Published: 2006-09-12

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1588365522

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A witty, charming, and engaging dive into trivia’s colorful history, from America’s highest-earning game show contestant of all time “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.

The Answer Is . . .
The Answer Is . . .

Author: Alex Trebek

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2020-07-21

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 1982158018

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Longtime Jeopardy! host and television icon Alex Trebek reflects on his life and career. When he debuted as the host of Jeopardy! in 1984, Alex Trebek became something like a family member to millions of television viewers, bringing entertainment and education into their homes five nights a week. In 2019, he made the stunning announcement that he had been diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer. What followed was an incredible outpouring of love and kindness. Social media was flooded with messages of support, and the Jeopardy! studio received boxes of cards and letters offering guidance, encouragement, and prayers. For more than three decades, Trebek had resisted countless appeals to write a book about his life. Yet he was moved so much by all the goodwill, he felt compelled to finally share his story. “I want people to know a little more about the person they have been cheering on for the past year,” he writes. The book combines illuminating personal anecdotes with Trebek’s thoughts on a range of topics, including marriage, parenthood, education, success, spirituality, and philanthropy. Trebek also addresses the questions asked most often by Jeopardy! fans, such as what prompted him to shave his signature mustache, his insights on legendary players like Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer, and his opinion of Will Ferrell’s Saturday Night Live impersonation. The book uses a novel structure inspired by Jeopardy! and features dozens of never-before-seen photos that candidly capture Trebek over the years. This wise, charming, and inspiring book is further evidence of why Trebek has long been considered one of the most beloved and respected figures in entertainment.