Today the Red Death Rays of Judgement Are But a Delightful Sunbeam on a Baby's Cheek

I've already cast back through the sands of time to recommend a book whose quality, by any standards, I'm much too biased to judge accurately.

(Although MG will tell you that no amount of kindness or generosity will spare you from the red death rays of judgement that shoot out of my eyes when I stumble upon an awkward phrase or a clumsy piece of dialogue, no matter who wrote it.)

In any event, things have now calmed down to the point where I can read actual book books, not just biographies of Cary Grant or screenplays written by my classmates. And the first such title to cross my path was the fantastic Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy!, by Bob Harris.

Astute readers will remember from earlier posts that I actually used to write trivia questions for a living, so you might think that the whole Jeopardy! angle had me at "What is hello?" Not so. In fact, writing trivia questions has turned out to be almost as disastrous for my personal growth as answering them on television has been lucrative for Bob. A handful of people can enter into the spirit of the thing, offering the helpful suggestion or directing me to an interesting source of things we're supposed to know but have forgotten. But most people want to play "I bet I'm smarter than the girl who writes trivia questions for a living!" Guess what? You are! I give up!

I'm sorry, where was I? Ah, yes, right! I HATE TRIVIA QUESTIONS! I HATE TRIVIA CONTESTS OF ALL KINDS! HATE HATE HATE HATE!

Yet magically, I really enjoyed Bob's book. Chew on that for a minute.

If you actually like/enjoy trivia questions and contests, this is still the book for you. In fact, I think Prisoner will probably become the go-to text for aspiring Jeopardy contestants. There's all kinds of useful advice about committing stuff to memory, and study techniques, and some tips on staying calm when your body would like to humiliate you utterly. (This is particularly valuable for me, as I keep walking into rooms with people who out earn me by a factor of a bajillion and who could brush away all my financial concerns like so much lint if they so chose.)

But for me, the best part was the story of Bob's journey through the strange and wondrous land of Trebekistan--the friends made along the way, the ways in which his success (and non-success) affected his sense of self and his relationships with people around him. I particularly enjoyed the moment when, just as I was thinking Bob was being a little hard on himself, his sister sighed impatiently and told Bob he was being a little hard on himself. (Wow, it's like she read my mind!) Not many authors will deliberately portray themselves as flawed human beings, and fewer still will walk us through the process of accepting those flaws. It shows a self-knowledge and grace as a writer that I really admire.

(Most writers--and bloggers--prefer to present a face of bland competence, or if they do make mistakes, to write a love song to those errors in judgement. See Frey, James and Bigger Fuck Up Than Me, Nobody is a.)

Judging from the blurbs on the back cover--Ira Glass (!), Joss Whedon (!!), Paul Feig (!!!)--I don't think excerpts of this post are going to find their way into the press kit anytime soon, but I'm a big fan of Harris's blog (not surprisingly located at www.bobharris.com) and suspected I'd like his book very much. Which I do. And lately, his posting has dwindled somewhat, owing to what he describes as "deadline pressures." I can only hope this means another book is on the way.