Claire McNear

This book lives up to the billing in its subtitle. It discusses the history of Jeopardy!, explains how the contestant selection process works, showcases the amount of work required to write compelling, unique, and relevant clues, and highlights some great players in the history of the game. It’s written clearly and with lightness of tone. There is some overlap of content with Alex Trebek’s memoir The Answer Is…, which is unavoidable, but comparing the two makes an interesting exercise. The bit that particularly jumped out at me was the discussion of who would succeed Trebek as host: if Ken Jennings were chosen to replace Alex, the competition rules would disqualify a LOT of potential players because many of them would have met Jennings through his work with National Academic Quiz Tournaments (a high school and university trivia organization that this reviewer played with in university) and other trivia leagues. I had not considered that, but it certainly makes me think that LeVar Burton might be a better choice for Trebek’s successor… or Betty White, as Alex himself suggested :)… (més)