Scan barcode
Reviews
Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs by Ken Jennings
lylyan_aki's review
2.0
I like Ken a lot. I'm a big fan of Jeopardy as well. The book is written in a Jeopardy format, which is quite smart. It's just hard to find someone's very normal life interesting.
tracey_stewart's review against another edition
4.0
I had fun with Brainiac. I had just gotten the call to go for this year’s Jeopardy! audition, and, being me, was in a fever of preparation. (As a few of us were waiting for things to begin, one or two people said “Gosh, I never studied or anything, did *you*??” Yes. Yes I did.)(No, it didn’t help.) So Brainiac seemed like a logical next step.
(Fair warning: I will probably not continue to properly use the exclamation point in “Jeopardy!”. It annoys me. If I get on and win I will use the “!” constantly, believe me, but till then I just don’t want to deal with the autocorrect.)
There’s more to this book than “I got famous appearing on Jeopardy”. It’s partly that; it’s partly memoir; it’s partly an informal history of trivia and trivia competition, and surprisingly filled with drama, humor, and pathos as such.
I do love reading other people’s paths to Jeopardy, because up to a certain point it’s identical to mine. No matter where it happens, whether Glenn or Maggie is in charge, it’s basically the same thing: a group of people ranging from mildly to wildly geeky together in a room with three Jeopardy professionals voluntarily taking a test that many would flee from. I like Ken Jennings. I like his story. I like his story-telling. Heck, if I wasn't utterly consumed with jealousy I might have given this five stars.
Kidding.
(Fair warning: I will probably not continue to properly use the exclamation point in “Jeopardy!”. It annoys me. If I get on and win I will use the “!” constantly, believe me, but till then I just don’t want to deal with the autocorrect.)
There’s more to this book than “I got famous appearing on Jeopardy”. It’s partly that; it’s partly memoir; it’s partly an informal history of trivia and trivia competition, and surprisingly filled with drama, humor, and pathos as such.
I do love reading other people’s paths to Jeopardy, because up to a certain point it’s identical to mine. No matter where it happens, whether Glenn or Maggie is in charge, it’s basically the same thing: a group of people ranging from mildly to wildly geeky together in a room with three Jeopardy professionals voluntarily taking a test that many would flee from. I like Ken Jennings. I like his story. I like his story-telling. Heck, if I wasn't utterly consumed with jealousy I might have given this five stars.
Kidding.
hlogan's review
3.0
I especially enjoyed the fascinating behind-the-scenes look at Ken Jennings' winning streak on Jeopardy!, but the insight into the world of trivia at large was pretty interesting as well. Told in Jenning's conversational tone, anything could be made interesting.
abrswf's review against another edition
5.0
Such a fun read. Although it is now 17 years since it’s 2006 publication, this book is both a behind the scenes look at Jennings’ awesome Jeopardy! run and a history of trivia. It is gently humorous and stuffed with pretty good trivia questions and answers, too.