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

by Ken Jennings

Jeopardy! is sweetly cerebral relief piped in straight from the Eisenhower era, a time capsule from an age before America dumbed down.

they remind us that truth is stranger than fiction, that the universe really is a brilliant and mysterious place. In the midst of our humdrum daily routine, trivia can be a bolt out of the blue, reminding us how weirdly wonderful life really is.

“Knowledge and intelligence are not the same thing,” he concludes, “but they do live in the same neighborhood.”

“A lot of people are intimidated by trivia,” he says. “They just don’t feel like participants. You can always tell these people—their first response is always ‘Who cares?’”