My Yen for Ken (Jennings)

Yesterday I posted about one of my latest obsessions: the TV show "Lost." That was an obsession I could share with my lit class and the rest of the world. My other growing obsession, however, is really only understandable or endearing to a few people in this world...Ken Jennings' new book, Braniac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs.

The book came out last Tuesday, but I didn't rush right out to Barnes & Noble. I waited until Wednesday...afternoon. Since then I've been basically devouring it. It's just so good! The basic premise of the book is an exploration of trivia and why some people just love it, with a little bit of Ken's life and experience as Jeopardy's greatest champion thrown in there.

I've basically been in love with Ken Jennings since I watched him kick ass on Jeopardy in the summer and fall of 2004. I love him. I've had dreams about him. I was heartbroken when he hosted the televised version of the high school quiz bowl championships, "Faceoff: Minnesota," while I was in Spain and my brother got to meet him without me (though I was kind of mad at Ken for his "You guys suck" attitude toward the Armstrong team, the free tacos I won from the show helped me to get over it).

Braniac is one of those books that I feel was written with me in mind, and I just sit there grinning like an idiot as I read. There is an entire chapter in it about quiz bowl. He mentions quiz bowl authorities I've met before. He quotes a quiz bowl coach that might well be Mr. Quinn. He embeds trivia questions into each chapter. Parts of it (for all former students of Mr. Heydanek) are built like an i-search, with Ken wandering around the country to find interesting people from the world of trivia. It's a delicious book, and I'm only halfway through.