The Answer is...Memoir Monday? No, it's the Memoir of Alex Trebek!

The Answer is... Reflections on My Life by Alex Trebek... Longtime Jeopardy! host and television icon Alex Trebek reflects on his life and career.

Since debuting as the host of Jeopardy! in 1984, Alex Trebek has been something like a family member to millions of television viewers, bringing entertainment and education into their homes five nights a week. Last year, he made the stunning announcement that he had been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. What followed was an incredible outpouring of love and kindness. Social media was flooded with messages of support, and the Jeopardy! studio received boxes of cards and letters offering guidance, encouragement, and prayers.

For over three decades, Trebek had resisted countless appeals to write a book about his life. Yet he was moved so much by all the goodwill, he felt compelled to finally share his story. “I want people to know a little more about the person they have been cheering on for the past year,” he writes in The Answer Is…: Reflections on My Life.

The book combines illuminating personal anecdotes with Trebek’s thoughts on a range of topics, including marriage, parenthood, education, success, spirituality, and philanthropy. Trebek also addresses the questions he gets asked most often by Jeopardy! fans, such as what prompted him to shave his signature mustache, his insights on legendary players like Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer, and his opinion of Will Ferrell’s Saturday Night Live impersonation. The book uses a novel structure inspired by Jeopardy!, with each chapter title in the form of a question, and features dozens of never-before-seen photos that candidly capture Trebek over the years.

Alex, I love you! And I'm not alone. I can't remember where I was at the start of Jeopardy, but I sure can tell you that I've been hanging around watching jeopardy for at least 30 of its 30 plus years on television. And so, what Alex Trebek fan wouldn't want to read a book by the master himself? Published by Simon & Schuster this past Tuesday, July 21st and available at your favorite bookstore. This is definitely on my wishlist!

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P.S. If one Alex Trebek book wasn't enough, Thomas Dunne Books also published an Alex book released the same day as the other one! Who is Alex Trekek, a Biography was penned by Lisa Rogak, who has written many biographies, including one on Stephen King, Bill Gates and Rachel Maddow. I almost feel as though they jumped on the bandwagon to get out a book of the much loved Jeopardy host because of his diagnosis and serious battle with pancreatic cancer. My money is on the book actually written by Alex Trebek though. I don't have interest in reading a well researched biography. 

First Lines Friday...

"The deadly virus stole unnoticed through the crowded cobblestone streets of Philadelphia on a  sunny September day, unseen and unheard amidst the jubilant chaos of the Liberty Loan parade and the patriotic marhes of John Philip Sousa."
                                     ....The Orphan Collector by Ellen Marie Wiseman


It would seem timely that this book came out now. The story brings us to the end of WWI, in 1918, as the Spanish flu, and the last modern day pandemic, broke out. Courtesy of Kensington Publishing, our book club is reading this as our August pick. Keep an eye out for my review, and what my book club thought of it. If you want to learn more about it, and read an excerpt, visit Kensington publishing. The Orphan Collector by Ellen Marie Wiseman will be released on August 4th!

Memoir Monday...

Becoming Duchess Goldblatt, a Memoir by Anonymous... Part memoir and part joyful romp through the fields of imagination, the story behind a beloved pseudonymous Twitter account reveals how a writer deep in grief rebuilt a life worth living.

Becoming Duchess Goldblatt is two stories: that of the reclusive real-life writer who created a fictional character out of loneliness and thin air, and that of the magical Duchess Goldblatt herself, a bright light in the darkness of social media. Fans around the world are drawn to Her Grace’s voice, her wit, her life-affirming love for all humanity, and the fun and friendship of the community that’s sprung up around her.

@DuchessGoldblat (81 year-old literary icon, author of An Axe to Grind) brought people together in her name: in bookstores, museums, concerts, and coffee shops, and along the way, brought real friends home—foremost among them, Lyle Lovett.
 
“The only way to be reliably sure that the hero gets the girl at the end of the story is to be both the hero and the girl yourself.” — Duchess Goldblatt

This book by a "real-life" writer sounds like a fun romp through the pages! I guess I have been living under a bus because it wasn't until I read about this book that I had hear about Duchess Goldblatt, the Twitter sensation for the literary crowd. There are book tours hosted by the Duchess's literary friends, aka famous writers who follow "her" on Twitter, and there are her fun tweets to be read, and now we can read about how Duchess Goldblatt came into being... I've just followed Duchess Goldblatt with my Twitter account and I look forward to reading Becoming Duchess Goldblatt published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt this past July 7th, and available at your local bookstore. (p.s. this book has gotten some great buzz, a starred review by Kirkus Review and made the Indie Next list for July 2020.)