Ken Jennings (1)Anmeldelser

Lots of Fun geography facts, told in an engaging way.

Dreadful writing style. Too many digressions. Every paragraph had several. And much of the material was anecdotal and pointless (unless that was his point). While there was interesting material, too much of it was material of no consequence that I'd like to forget immediately. Reminded me of picking up a Readers Digest or People in a waiting room. It occupies the mind but only for immediate entertainment value. And many of his references require obscure trivia such as having watched the same TV shows that he did.

Would not have read the whole book except that it was a choice for our book club.

I would have preferred writing that would give me something to think about. But there was little in the book that I didn't already know and I'll care to remember. For instance, I knew about the debates of how to represent curved surfaces on a flat map (Peters, Mercator, etc.). But I could care less about how SNL switched maps behind their news hosts at one point. Sheesh!

Самый известный эрудит США, Кен Дженнингз, написал книгу о юморе – “Planet Funny: How Comedy Took Over Culture”. Кена, автора нескольких очень интересных книг, одну из которых перевели на русский, я видел и слышал лишь один раз (правда живьем на первой олимпиаде знатоков в Афинах в 2016), но там он был свадебным генералом и больше как раз юморил. Его любимая шутка была “Build-a-Title” (названия фильмов, перетекающие друг в друга): A Few Good Men in Black Beauty and the Beastmaster and Commander: The Far Side of the World According to Garp.

Но в этой книге он продемонстрировал всю огневую мощь своей памяти и кругозора. Меня он сразил уже в начале, упомянув, что сарказм от того же корня, что саркома и саркофаг. Про этимологию “иронии” было еще чудеснее. Вообще, история шутки и юмора раскрыта очень широко и разбросана по всей книге, что в основном и заставляло меня не сдаваться, когда попадались очередные американские реалии вроде Ленни Брюса. Иначе бы я лишил себя удовольствия познакомиться со Святым Никто, остроумным произведением, подаренным одному Папе. Надергав цитат из Библии со словом «никто», автор логично предположил, что это не банальное местоимение, а вполне себе реальное существо, достойное поклонения. Еще бы: «Никто не победит Бога» (по латыни «не» не будет), «Никто не может служить двум господам» (то же самое) – вполне себе супергерой.

Есть ли потенциал у книги на русском? Возможно, если вы считаете, что россияне знакомы с большинством упомянутого в приведенной схеме. Схема тут

Признаться, я ожидал чего-то другого, какого-то более серьезного анализа ползучей экспансии юмора и превращения его в опиум для народа «А вот поржи еще над этими забавными песиками, нечего тебе «Он вам не Димон» смотреть». Хотя...кое-какая любопытная информация-таки была дана, типа рост числа шуток в минуту в комедийных тв-шоу за последние десятилетия. Или их качественные изменения: над шуткой Вуди Аллена «Самое эффективное оральное противозачаточное – сказать слово «нет» начинали смеяться через несколько секунд, сейчас почти немедленно.

Делает Дженнигз и прогноз относительно места юмора в жизни общества (наверное, шутливый): "Я могу гарантировать вам, что шутки будут продолжать проникать во все больше и больше мест, где они когда-то были, явно или неофициально, полностью запрещены. Ироничные панегирики и смешные надгробия не за горами. Грядут смешные руководства по эксплуатации устройств, юморные судьи, выносящие смешные решения (из серии ответ царя дебоширу «Передайте ему, что я тоже на него плевал»). Шутки на дорожных знаках. Шутки в законодательстве. Шутки в научных и медицинских исследованиях.”

Отдельно доставило приведенное на английском стихотворение нашего Велимира Хлебникова. По-английский читается с трудом, понимается вообще никак. Впрочем, и от русского оригинала у меня ум за разум быстро зашёл. Им и закончим:

ЗАКЛЯТИЕ СМЕХОМ

О, рассмейтесь, смехачи!
О, засмейтесь, смехачи!
Что смеются смехами, что смеянствуют смеяльно,
О, засмейтесь усмеяльно!
О, рассмешищ надсмеяльных — смех усмейных смехачей!
О, иссмейся рассмеяльно, смех надсмейных смеячей!
Смейево, смейево,
Усмей, осмей, смешики, смешики,
Смеюнчики, смеюнчики.
О, рассмейтесь, смехачи!
О, засмейтесь, смехачи!

Maps are such a big part of our lives, I'm surprised I haven't read into the topic before now. I'm old enough to remember planning a journey with a road atlas or referring to handwritten directions, but I look at maps far more often now with GPS and Google Maps than I ever did before. In Maphead - Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks, Ken Jennings is the ultimate tour guide.

Early on, he starts with some basics about different kinds of maps, like this one:

"Hypsometric maps are those ones that represent terrain with vivid colours: greens for low elevations, browns and purples for high ones. I preferred the clean political maps that Hammond and National Geographic published, where cities and towns stood out neatly on lightly shaded territory and borders were delineated in crisp pastels. In fact, I dislike hypsometric maps to this day." Page 6

I wasn't a fan of hypsometric maps when I was in Defence standing in the bush with a compass in my hand, but I do love an informative choropleth map, especially during elections:

"'Choropleth' maps - those in which areas are colored differently to represent different values on some scale, like the red-and-blue maps on election night - date back only to 1826." Page 8

Jennings is the knowledgeable navigator in the passenger seat on this journey, and as you drive through the pages and chapters, he readily provides all manner of info about geonerds and their love of maps. If you enjoy learning quirky facts in quick succession, this is for you. Example, did you know that 'cartacacoethes' is the uncontrollable compulsion to see maps everywhere?

The puddle that looks like a perfect map of Australia immediately springs to mind, as does my remark last night that the protein (pork schnitzel) looked like the shape of Africa.

When the allies were planning the 1944 invasion at Normandy, there were extraordinary contributions made my mapmakers who had stolen across the English Channel by night for many months to map the coastline. Furthermore:

"In 1942, the BBC asked its listeners to send in prewar postcards and holiday snaps from the beaches of Europe. Seven million poured in, showing coastlines from Norway to the Pyrenees, and they were used to select Normandy as the site of the initial landing." Page 59

Despite a reasonable knowledge of military history, this was completely new to me. It seems unheard of, until you remember a similar call out by more recent governments: 'if you see something say something' and the images submitted post 9/11.

I was happy to see Humpty Doo (Northern Territory) get a mention in the section about place names and toponymists, as the author tells us he's been an enthusisastic toponymist - a student of place-names - for as long as he's loved maps. We then move on to the market for collectors of ancient maps and globes for display purposes that stretches as far back as the Renaissance:

"This was a watershed moment in the history of cartophilia. For thousands of years, people had drawn maps because they had to: to get from one place to another, or locate taxpayers, or mark the boundaries of fields and pastures. If not for those maps, lives or property would be lost, governments might fall. But here, for the first time, we have evidence of people keeping maps just because they liked looking at them." Page 99

Here Jennings mentions several figures from history - like John Dee, Samuel Pepys - who loved collecting and viewing maps, including Vermeer who reproduced maps in the backgrounds of more than a quarter of his paintings.

For readers who would rather leave history in the past, the section on maps in fantasy fiction was illuminating. C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, David Eddings are mentioned, but it was the detail about Brandon Sanderson's maps that held my attention the longest. The author and Sanderson were college roommates, so he offers quite an insight.

"The hallmark of epic fantasy is immersion," says the best-selling genre writer Brandon Sanderson. "That's why I've always included maps in my books. I believe the map prepares your mind to experience the wonder, to say, 'I am going to a new place.'" Page 113

Jennings weighs in on the 'map gap' between the genders, and he made some convincing arguments:

"Tests on gender and navigation have found that women tend to navigate via landmarks ("I turn left when I get to the gas station") whereas men use dead reckoning ("I still need to be north and maybe a little west of here"), which ties in nicely with the evolutionary perspective: early men went out on hunting expeditions in all directions and always needed to be good at finding their way back to the cave, developing their "kinesic memory," while women foraged for edibles closer to home, developing "object location memory." Simply put, men got better at finding places, while women got better at finding things." Page 139-140

I'm also guilty of setting my map preference to 'forward is up', while my husband prefers the 'north is up' orientation which totally messes with my mind when I'm forced to use it.

The section on systematic travel was fascinating, and the first person who came to mind was Matt Harding, whose Where the Hell is Matt? series went viral in the 2000s. Some systematic travellers aim to visit every country in the world, perhaps every capital city, every state in the USA, the most northern/southern/eastern/western tip of a landmass. But how about ticking off the junction of state borders, or the highest mountains on every continent? The sky is the limit, and while I think I'd find the concept stressful, ticking off locations is high on the list for systematic travellers.

Just like twitchers and trainspotters, roadgeeks are the highway scholars of mapheads, and take photos of road signs to clock their routes.

"They can tell the difference between a Westinghouse streetlight and a GE one and are the only ones who notice when the lettering on interstate signage is switched over from Highway Gothic to the new Clearview font." Page 167

I don't know why, but I find this incredibly reassuring and even comforting. Perhaps knowing there are people in the world who pursue these particular interests gives me a sense that in every field, no matter how specialised, there is an expert; someone who lives and breathes everything there is to know about that topic.

The chapter on geocaching had me checking for geocache locations near me and - just like the author - I was surprised to find one less than 500m from my front door! It only required a photograph to complete the find, so I wasn't tempted to sign up and start checking caches on the weekend, but I'll certainly look twice next time I see someone taking a selfie at that location. They could be a geocacher!

Maphead by Ken Jennings is endlessly fascinating, and while I've been lucky enough to experience the thrill of watching the numbers tick over on the GPS when crossing the equator, did you know that confluence hunting is a thing?

"The Degree Confluence Project was started in 1996 by a Massachusetts Web programmer named Alex Jarrett, a new GPS owner who noticed that his commute happened to take him across the nearby seventy-second meridian twice a day." Page 237

Jennings tells us that no spot on Earth is more than 49 miles from one of these points of 'cartographic perfection' and there are 16,340 confluence points worldwide. Can you imagine? Maybe you've been lucky enough to visit a location (US has a few) where you can stand right at the spot where 3 or 4 states come together. Perhaps you just give a hoot when you cross from NSW to VIC in your car, but for a confluence hunter this is small fry.

I can see this review is getting long, and I haven't even begun to touch on all of the Google Earth and street view stuff! In reading Maphead and learning why so many people are cartographically cloddish, I'm convinced Geography needs to re-enter the curriculum of the day.

If you suspect you'll need to look up images of maps while reading this, you're spot on, so have your device at the ready. Maphead - Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks by Ken Jennings is an absolutely fascinating read and I'll be sorry to return it to the library.

Highly recommended!

the book starts off funny and interesting, but not long after beginning, it was like seeing the same jokes over and over with slightly-changed characters and scenarios... while the book seems well-researched, i ended up skipping a fair number of chapters rather than enduring the attempts at being the same "funny" over and over...

Pulling from Norse mythology to the iconic film "Field of Dreams" and everything in between, Ken Jennings takes the reader through 100 different possible "afterlives" go visit in his newest book, which is as informative as it is funny. It is abundantly clear the sheer magnitude of research that went into creating this book, and Jennings lays it all out for the "still living" in ways that are easily understandable and make you want to keep reading.

This was an absolute joy to read (not someone one usually says about death!) and could easily be updated and expanded as time continues its never ending march forward. I would absolutely recommend this book to others - you'll be shocked by how much you learn without realizing it! (I've had many of Ken's books on my TBR for quite a while, but this was my first to cross off the list. I'm very excited to continue through his catalog of seemingly unending knowledge.)

No need to read front to back, you can skip around and read what interests you the most. I believe overall, I read most of this book. Ken Jennings did a great job of pulling all these resources into one theme.

I received an advance copy via NetGalley.

Jennings’s new release is an inventive, diverse tour guide to the afterlife, ranging from world religions to The Good Place to the Marvel Universe. Each chapter is a quick, snappy read, many only three or so pages in length, with a few more prolonged and detailed. To use an irresistible pun, the book is enlightening. There were several faiths and media-based afterlives I knew nothing about, and I appreciated Jennings’s tone. His humor can be dry, but there is never a sense that he is picking on someone.

I'm not quite sure how Mr. Jennings did all of his research, but this is a 'lite' travel guide, listed alphabetically, of 100 afterlife destinations. Quite amusing and great trivia too. It covers everything from mythological locations, literary, movies, TV shows and a very, very few from formal religions. He mostly stays away from discussing religious beliefs, but not entirely. In 1 to 4 pages, he summarizes what an afterlife might be like, from South Park (really) to Valhalla.½

This is an inspiring look at maps and people who love them. It starts out with a cynical expose on the pitiful state of geographical knowledge in America, explores the phenomenon of the Geography Bee, and meanders through Fun With Maps, including the world of compulsive, competitive travel and the "sport" of geocaching. There are also very interesting ruminations on the origins and implications of GPS and digital maps, as well as the changing role of place in our lives. Perhaps no trivia buff is complete without a taste for geography and all the many facts it offers, but Ken Jennings clearly loves maps and exploring the world. I could write more, but I have to go look at my atlas now.

You just have to love Ken Jennings! The man has the unique ability to take really esoteric and complicated information and turn it into a enjoyable and entertaining read. He's done it again with this book. What a great way to explore and learn about other cultures and their beliefs! Bravo! I look forward to his next book!

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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WHAT'S 100 PLACES TO SEE AFTER YOU DIE ABOUT?
Ken Jennings provides a handy tour guide through one hundred visions of the afterlife for the modern reader. Complete with tips on places to see, areas to avoid, local lingo, bits of trivia, dining tips, and so on, it's just the kind of thing you're going to want to peruse before you shuffle off this mortal coil, so you know where to go.

The book is broken down into: Mythology, Religion, Books, Movies, Music and Theater, and Miscellaneous. Then (alphabetically) Jennings looks at a variety of afterlife locales in each category.

For example, the Books section covers:

Aslan’s Country • The Bridge • The Cemetery • The Empyrean • The Five Lessons • Half-Life • The Inbetween • Inferno • The Kingdom • King’s Cross • Mansoul • The Null • Pandemonium • Paradiso • The Parish • Purgatorio • Riverworld • The Third Sphere • The Time Bubble • The Undying Lands • The Valley of the Shadow of Life*

* From Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia and The Great Divorce; O'Connor's story "Revelation"; Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo; Milton's Paradise Lost; Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven; Dick's Ubik; Sebold's The Lovely Bones; Dante's The Divine Comedy; Twain's "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven"; Rowling's Harry Potter; Moore's Jerusalem; King's Revival; O'Brien/O'Nolan's The Third Policeman; Farmer's Riverworld; Matheson's What Dreams May Come; Oliver's The Time Bubble; and Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

Jennings describes each place with wit, humor, Dad Jokes, puns, irreverence, and plenty of facts.

DANCING THROUGH A MINEFIELD
It's one thing to talk about places like Valhalla, Hades, The Bad Place, Bill & Ted's Bogus destination, or Futurama's Robot Hell in a light-hearted or flippant fashion. It's an entirely different can of worms to discuss the LDS Three Kingdoms of Glory, Jannah, Jahannam, Ariel Toll Houses/Telonia, and so on—in the same tone.

I will not say that Jennings was able to fully succeed in discussing the afterlives described in some major religions in an unoffensive manner. Primarily because I'm not an adherent of any of the religions he discussed, so my tolerance for that is really high. Had he tackled something I believe in, I very well could've been at risk of insult.

That said, I think he did okay. Yes, he walks close to irreverent. But he maintains a decent degree of respect. The humor largely comes from the way he describes the beliefs not at the expense of an article of faith.

Still, some people might want to skip over a chapter or two if they're worried about getting their toes stepped on. (but those people probably aren't going to be reading this book in the first place)

A FEW HIGHLIGHTS
Ohhh, there are just so many.

The Books section was my favorite—followed closely by Movies and Television—this is the kind of thing I blog about, think about, and so on, so it makes sense that those sections resonated with me most. The Books section, in particular, discussed portions of those works in ways I could really sink my teeth into.

But there were multiple highlights in each section—I learned a lot about D&D, I couldn't help singing "Ghost Riders in the Sky" during that chapter, I think he pointed out a good plot hole in It's a Wonderful Life (I don't know, maybe he's not the first), I loved the discussion of Bosch's paintings, and so on.

The chapter on The Good Life was fantastic—a great systemization of the series' take on the afterlife (and several characters). The chapter on Nirvana was sublime.

Books, movies, mythologies, songs, etc. that I've never heard of, much less, read/watched/listened to/studied were described in enough detail that I could appreciate those chapters and maybe even develop an interest in following up on.

PROBLEMS/QUIBBLES/THINGS THAT DIDN'T WORK FOR ME
Um. Hold on, I'll think of something.

...

...

oh! Here's a problem: the eARC came with the typical "don't quote from this version until verified by the published edition" warning—but it was more pronounced than usual. I really want to use samples throughout this post, but I can't. (and I wouldn't have even without this warning, because I know things get tweaked in the final stages).

Actually, I do have a legitimate gripe. There are no footnotes—or even endnotes*—for anything that Jennings says. Most of what the book contains could fall into the category of "General Knowledge" (at least for people who know anything about The Good Place, Dante, or the religion of the Maori). But I wouldn't have minded a point in the right direction to learn some more details, context, or background on many, many, many things Jennings wrote about.

* It's been decades since I haven't asked why a book uses endnotes when footnotes exist, and yet I'd have liked to have them in this book more than the nothing we got. That's how much this bothers me.

I CAN'T HELP PONDERING...
Given the argument of Planet Funny: How Comedy Took Over Our Culture by Ken Jennings, I wonder about his approach to the subject of the afterlife. Sure, even Planet Funny was frequently funny as it critiqued the overuse of humor in our culture, but for his next book to take this tone, seems to undercut the work.

Or maybe it just shows that even as he can look with clear eyes at some of the weaknesses of our culture, he's part of it and is subject to the influences. It's almost like he's human.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT 100 PLACES TO SEE AFTER YOU DIE?
This section is going to be shorter than usual because I think I've pretty much answered the question already.

From the "throwaway lines" to the big ideas, this was a delight from start to finish. I thoroughly enjoyed this approach to the subjects—quick hits that tell you the essentials and make you smile while telling them.

Jennings' style is one I aspire to, and can't say enough good things about.

I can't think of a reason not to give this 5 Stars, but my gut tells me not to. So I'll knock it down to 4 1/2 (which isn't a big deal since Goodreads, NetGalley, etc. won't let me use 1/2 stars, I'll round up). It's educational, it's entertaining, and it's thought-provoking. You can't go wrong with this.½

"Curiosity, memory, and a love for exhaustive and exhausting detail--that's the trivia trifecta right there."

This is Ken Jennings memoir of his months' long run in 2003 as Jeopardy champion during which he won more than $2 million. Interspersed is a history of trivia fads and games over the years, as well as interviews and stories about famous and not-so-famous trivia celebrities, such as the inventor of the Trivial Pursuit game, or people associated with the various College Bowl games.

The book is well-written and quite entertaining. As a bonus, in each chapter Jennings embeds 10 trivia questions. I was quite pleased with myself at usually being able to answer at least 5 of them--Alas not quite Jeopardy champ material.

3 stars

A great book about Greek mythology.

That was the one thing the world’s oldest civilization had figured out about death: that it was extremely permanent.

from 100 Places to See After You Die by Ken Jennings
Okay, just seeing this book cover made me laugh and I had to get inside it. And, it’s by Jeopardy champ and host Ken Jennings.

It is a book best taken in bites, because, after all, how much time do you really want to spend in places where people are subjected to endless pain and suffering? Like the Inuit’s Adlivun where you meet Sedna’s old man who will pull you under a bearskin rug and torment you for a year. Or the Chinese Diyu, a purgatory where you might be sawed in half. Or worst of all, observe your home town that has happily forgotten you.

Sure, there is the opportunity to get to some really nice places, where you are assured a good hunt at the other end of the Milky Way path to the heavens. Your dog even has his own route there. If you are one of the lucky 144,000, the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe you will govern heaven next to Jesus. Swedenborg had visions of communities for the good and the bad; nice parks and gardens for some, shantytowns and thieves for others.

Jennings has scoured sources of all kind–of course mythology and religion but also literature and art and comic books and video games and D&D and movies and television like The Good Place, which my husband and I absolutely loved.

Humanity has imagined a multitude of possible afterlives, but most seem to involve the same dichotomy: we will be punished for our sins or rewarded for good behavior–or after we atone for our sins.

So, as Pascal posited in his wager, it’s better to err on the safe side, and you’d better be good.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

¡Si pones los ojos así te vas a quedar bizco! ¡Aléjate del microondas, que es radioactivo! ¡No mees en la piscina, hay un reactivo azul! ¡Si bebes refresco tendrás hipo! Se trata de frases que se pasan de padres a hijos, a medio camino entre la leyenda urbana y la pseudociencia, y que sin embargo repetimos instintivamente sin pararnos a pensar si tienen algo de ciertas. No te bañes mientras haces la digestión, siéntate derecho, no hables con extraños… El autor se propone en este libro analizar un centenar de estas afirmaciones y ver hasta qué punto la sabiduría popular es más o menos rigurosa. Bien seas un padre o una madre con ganas de quitarte preocupaciones de encima, bien seas un hijo que siempre estuvo seguro que aquellas advertencias eran un disparate, éste es tu libro.

I wasn't immediately sold on Jennings' premise but his case for humour proliferation had me be the end. The Chinese Room argument applied to Twitter was particularly stunning. Come for the jokes, get Searle's logic applied to emergent phenomena in social media for free.

Jennings' book is like a mirror-universe version of John Hodgman's explanatory epics.

More than I ever realized there was to maps and those who understand them! Plus other interesting tidbits. Glad I listened to it: not sure I would have finished reading it had I not. I wish Jennings had narrated his own work.½

My one star deduction is because I want him to be wrong....

My 8-year-old daughter really enjoyed this book and asked me to read it. Lots of fun trivia on U. S. presidents. Briefly introduced the accomplishments of some of them, but nothing overtly political. It's hard to remember all the president's names, or keep track of them in chronological order, since there are over 40 of them, but I think I managed to learn several new presidential names. It's nice to read about presidents of opposing political parties becoming good friends after their presidential terms. Rooting and praying for you, America!

Ken Jennings talks about his experiences being on Jeopardy! (over and over and over...) and what his life was like before, during and after his unprecedented run of wins. Interspersed with that, he talks about trivia: its history as a pastime, why it's interesting and whether it's worthwhile, and what kind of person turns that pastime into a full-blown obsession. (Jennings himself honestly seems to have been born to it. Some of the stories about what he was like even as a small child do kind of make me feel much better about the fact that I haven't won seventy-four games of Jeopardy! in a row. I like trivia, but I think I'm lacking some gene for it that this guy was born with.) He also talks a lot about particular trivia contests and events, including college bowl quizzes, rigged 1950s game shows, and a weird town in Wisconsin where the biggest event of the year is an insanely nitpicky fifty-four hour trivia event.

I found some of the trivia-obsessed people and places he visits a lot more interesting than others, but overall this was an entertaining read, and I love the way he peppers the book with trivia questions to challenge the reader in a way that makes them part of the narrative. And his descriptions of his Jeopardy! career are especially interesting, and much more exciting than I might have expected from the fact that I already knew perfectly well how the whole thing went.

A thoroughly entertaining of the things your parents always presented to you as truth. My mother was a great believer in not swimming for an hour -- exactly! an hour -- after eating. Ken Jennings researches what he can find out behind these stories and assigns them a rating on the scale of true and false.½

Another informational book in this engaging series from Jennings, this title provides all the basics about ancient Egypt in a lively, kidfriendly format. Lowery’s illustrations nicely fit the book’s tone.

This informational book has an engaging format and provides the basics students need to know about maps and geography, as well as many fun facts.