Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs by Ken Jennings

Ken Jennings was the first multi-million dollar winner on the game show "Jeopardy!", staying on top and winning for over six months of nightly shows. How did he get to that point, and what kept him on top? How does one even prepare for the experience of being on Jeopardy, and what sort of person does so well on the show, anyway?

Ken Jennings throws back the curtains on his own life and shows how and why he got into trivia, and what sort of preparation he needed to go on the show and do so very well. Along the way, he shows us the history of trivia, and how it became a national obsession- not once, but many times.

He opens the doors on competitions much, much more difficult than Jeopardy, called College Bowl, and shows how cutthroat the competition really is- and how so many trivia buffs come out of college bowl into competitions like "Jeopardy!" and "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" He takes us to a town with an annual trivia competition held over an entire weekend that the entire town participates in- just for the bragging rights of winning, and meets with the men who dig up the facts that go into trivia books or become questions on shows like "Jeopardy!".

More importantly, Ken Jennings takes us behind the scenes of the show he dominated for so long and shows us how he did it, and how he prepared to win. And also how ready he was to lose for the longest time- until it actually happened. How his friendships with the contestants who came on the show, many of whom were very nice people, were blighted by his defeating them. And how his familiarity with the show's rhythms worked to his advantage the longer he was champion.

This book is stuffed to the gills with Trivia, both on Jeopardy itself, and in questions asked in the book or factoids offered up along the way. Each is footnoted, so if you see something like, "Or if you don't know where the Taj Mahal is located14, you can go to the end of the chapter and see the answer. (Agra, India, for those who don't know or can't remember).

This enlivens the book so that you can, in a small way, "play along" with the author. I certainly got some of the answers right. I knew where the Taj Mahal was located, foods starting with q, one being something like a pie (quiche) and the other a type of oyster (quahog, pronunced Ko-hog). So even if the chapter (each given in the form of a question/answer, i.e. "What is Ambition?") bores you, you can keep an eye out for the questions and play your way through.

I found this an entertaining book that is also a biography and a trivia book (as he points out, in the future, his own name and accomplishment will become trivia- and by this point, already has!), and it was endlessly fascinating to me. Just when you think you are growing bored by Ken's story, along will come trivia on trivia, and it all becomes interesting again.

I heartily recommend this book if you are interested in Trivia, in the meteoric rise of Ken Jennings to the top of the heap on "Jeopardy!", or in the ways that Trivia informs, entertains and enlightens America. A Fascinating look at an intensely interesting world that anyone can enter.