A RECOMMENDED SUMMER READ BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, TIME, AND NEWSWEEK 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 … 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.
This wise, charming, and inspiring book is further evidence why Trebek has long been considered one of the most beloved and respected figures in entertainment.
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If you’ve ever wanted to sit down to dinner with Alex Trebek and pick his brain about all the things he is usually reluctant to share, this is a fine way to do that. He will amuse you with childhood stories like jumping off the roof with a homemade parachute. He will reveal himself to be vulnerable and real. He will inspire and inform about how he’s dealing with pancreatic cancer. This is no War and Peace, nor is it meant to be. It’s an honest sharing of the very human person behind the public persona. You will be glad you met him this way, and if you are a Jeopardy fan, you will catch some backstage, behind-the-scenes insights there as well. There is a lot to take away from the book via his positivity, optimism, and hope.
For years, people all over the country, and even the world, tuned at the exact same time on weekdays to see the same warm and familiar face of Alex Trebek, the host of game show Jeopardy! Whether it be the days of his sported mustache or in the days where he fell ill with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, his warm presence on the show was a welcome beautification to televised society. In a final memoir before his passing, Trebek collected numerous stories from the very beginning of his life to the very end in The Answer Is…, his memoir. Out of the gate, Trebek writes that he is not a novelist and had no desire to write a memoir or biography such as this one, but did it after much consideration. In an uncommon fashion, his stories, short by nature, ranged from the warm, to the hilarious, to even the ones that may make you tear up. Reading it is like having him speaking to you, telling the life story as if he is in front of you, with brevity and clarity that only Trebek could provide. If you are looking for a warm read during a holiday or to learn more about one of the greatest television show hosts and his life, pick this one up and read it cover to cover. You may not be able to put it down, as a forewarning!
Unprecedented Look At A Man We All Came To See As An Uncle. For me, this book will always be tied up in so many emotions. I listened to it while driving home from my hometown, which is never easy to begin with, knowing that the next time I come back, it will be to say goodbye to the house I spent my teens and early 20s in – the house I truly became a man in. And I listened to Alex tell me about his life, with the assistance of Ken Jennings – the person who won the most Jeopardy games ever – for much of the book. Alex himself did the introduction and final chapter, as well as chapters about Ken and other mega winners and about his wife. And in the Audible form, with Alex reading the final chapter, some combination of himself and/ or the engineers actually allowed his cancer-ravaged voice to come through in much of this final section. Though the final paragraphs, with Alex saying goodbye, return to the “old” Alex – the Alex Trebek I daresay is known to billions. It was a bittersweet ending, knowing that his time was limited by the pancreatic cancer he had revealed nearly two years before I read this book on November 8, 2020. And therein lies the final reason this book will forever be tied into so many emotions for me. Within roughly an hour of finishing this book while just arriving in the far side of my (largest US city by land area outside of Alaska) town, I learned that Alex Trebek had passed away that very morning, quite possibly as I was listening to this very book. (Though less likely as I was listening to him actually say goodbye.)
Alex Trebek as a cultural icon is right up there with Mr. Rogers.
Alex Trebek, the human revealed in these pages, is the same as any of the rest of us, though perhaps with a much higher sense of decorum than many of us.
RIP Alex Trebek, and thank you for writing this truly excellent book. Very much recommended.
Watching Jeopardy six nights a week is a treat for me that will never be the same with a different host. (My mother said about the show: “It makes me feel smart and dumb at the same time.”) With Alex Trebek now 80 and battling Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, this memoir is all the more poignant. It’s a series of vignettes, really, that give you a glimpse into who he is. He doesn’t delve too deeply. But you come away feeling you know him better and love him even more. The audiobook is read by him and Ken Jennings, mostly Jennings. Still, it’s wonderful to hear him when you do. His introduction is superb.
If you like the game show Jeopardy and its former host Alex Trebek, you’ll love The Answer Is…. about his life.
It was a good read. Learned more about the background of the show and the prep work he did.
I have always loved Alex! I have the audio book and sometimes I listen again to parts just to hear his voice. A gentle icon.
I grew up watching Jeopardy and now my kids are growing up watching Jeopardy. I’ve always appreciated Alex Trebek’s poise, professionalism, sense of humor, and intelligence, so getting this book was a no-brainer. I opted for the audiobook, which I don’t normally do, but it was so nice to hear Alex’s voice and Ken Jennings did a great job with most of the reading. This book is very entertaining, full of stories of Alex’s childhood and professional history, his family, and philanthropy.
Whether you’re a long-time Jeopardy fan or just enjoy reading autobiographical vignettes, you will enjoy this book (or audiobook!). At just over 300 pages, it isn’t a laborious or incredibly time consuming read, and the unabridged audiobook is around 5 hours, which served me well on a recent road trip. Highly recommend!
I have always watched Jeopardy since it came back on the air in 1984. First with my grandma, then college friends and now with my husband. Where I live it comes on at 4:30 p.m. and don’t expect me to do anything during that 30 minutes
I enjoyed this memoir by Alex Trebek. The chapters are super short and had my husband not been on vacation this week, I would have finished it quicker. He takes a look at his life from a youngster to when he stopped doing Jeopardy. I laughed from time to time and cried from time to time.
I think if you like to watch Jeopardy, you will enjoy this book
Tres bien Alex, tres bien!! What a pleasure it was to listen to Alex as he narrated a portion of his book The Answer Is…: Reflections on My Life, (Ken Jennings narrates the majority of this book and is flawless). The last year of my father’s incredible life I was able to capture his voice in a couple Easter Hallmark stuffed animals with him giving my kids his goodnight blessing that I grew up with: “goodnight my love, do wah, do wah”. Alex Trebek, narrating as he did, is another true blessing. The Answer Is…: Reflections of My Life is a compilation of various moments Alex Trebek shares with us all. Alex spoke of the importance of mentors in our lives and he was certainly one of mine. I have always valued who Alex was and his book confirmed just that. My biggest take-away from his book is that Alex Trebek was “human” and an exceptional one at that! I highly recommend The Answer Is…: Reflections on My Life by Alex Trebek.
I borrowed this one from the library at a friend’s recommendation. I’m not much into autobiographies or memoirs.
At the very beginning, he tells the readers that he never wanted to write this, and that he was pretty much coerced in to doing so. And for the first 2/3rd of the book, I kept reminding myself of that, kept hoping it would get better.
I found the portions (kind of hate to call them chapters) about actual Jeopardy! contestants to be interesting.
Then I got to the final 20% of the book. Earlier this week, a dear friend passed away from pancreatic cancer that spread to her lungs. I couldn’t help but think of her and her battle as I read the end of Alex’s story. My throat got a little stuck there at the end. So, adding one star for the emotional pull and sweet, uplifting ending.
This was just a wonderful little book. When it came in from the library I almost didn’t read it, thinking it wasn’t going to be all that interesting, but within a few minutes of starting the audiobook, I was hooked. It’s funny, it’s full of nostalgia without being sappy, it’s concise, and it gives a perfect glimpse into a truly great individual.
As mentioned, I “read” the audiobook version, and I highly recommend it. It goes back and forth between Alex Trebek and Ken Jennings doing the narration with funny little quips from Trebek as they switch off.
Don’t come into this book expecting a literary masterpiece. Alex will tell you right up front that he is far more comfortable with verbal communication than the written word. What I found was warm, funny, charming, conversational, exactly as I imagined Alex Trebek would be “off the set” and not at all a dry recitation of the basic facts of his life. You know that prompt “Name five people, living or dead, you would want at a dinner party”? Alex made that list before I ever read this book (while he was still among us, in fact) but this book secures his place on my list forevermore.
What I liked about “The Answer Is…”:
The tone and format – In my opening, I said the book was conversational. It truly was. It was as if Alex was sitting across from me, just sharing these little anecdotes, as you would do when you chat with someone. They managed to be this blend of not too deep and yet exposing this vulnerability. I felt like I was actually getting to know bits and pieces of Alex, not some carefully cultivated image, over-edited and glossed up. I’ve read other memoirs and while they have, in some cases been interesting, none has ever engaged me in a way that felt this authentic before.
Alex’s politics – I wanted to hug him so much for what he had to say about it. I won’t elaborate further.
What I didn’t care for:
I just wasn’t ready for it to end – It was bittersweet, reading this now, not so far removed from when Alex departed this earthly plane. Reading this book felt like making a new friend and I could have gone on turning pages for a lot longer.
What an absolute treasure of a human being. I am so very sad this he’s not part of this world any longer. At one point, Alex was speaking of Art Fleming: “He was just as he appeared on TV, a true gentleman.” And I thought to myself, Alex could have been speaking of himself as well, that truer words could not have been spoken.
I listened to the audiobook and I would highly recommend it! Hearing the words coming from Ken Jennings and Alex made it that much more special. Grab the tissues for the last 2 chapters.
After watching Alex Trebek on Jeopardy for almost 40 years I felt like someone I knew had passed away the day he died. He was in our living room many, many nights. He helped me develop my love of trivia.
Right from the outset of the book, I knew I would enjoy it. His writing style is very conversational. I can almost hear his voice. The chapters are all short, he is reminiscing about individual occurrences in his life. He goes through his life sequentially. His dry humour comes through at all times. And sometimes he’s corny. He is not afraid to laugh at himself. And, he is a humble man.
I love his stoicism. I love his thirst for knowledge and understanding in so many ways, he reminds me of my father.
Great photos throughout the book, of his wife, parents, and children. A view into the private lives of the Trebeks.
The subject matter of chapter is in the form of a question: What is………..? It’s a great tribute to the game. There are all sorts of interesting facts about the game. Naturally, there are chapters devoted to each, Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer. There are a couple chapters about other contestants also.
The last few chapters are less upbeat. He accepts that he is nearing the end of his life and is not afraid.
I’m not sure if this qualifies as a book review or my thoughts on Alex Trebek. I’m glad I read it and I believe I read it at the right point in time.
RIP Alex. You will be missed.
I got this back in July and after I heard that Alex Trebek died this past weekend, I wanted to listen to the audiobook. I listened to it all day yesterday except when I was sleeping, eating and also when I visited someone for 3 hours. I was nice to hear his story how he grew up in Canada and then came to the United States and all through his life he really was a very good man. My whole family watched Jeopardy every night and when we had a good friend move in with us after a bad fall and shattering her right shoulder and right knee we picked her up at the hospital physical rehab department and brought her to our house to stay for almost 7 months during COVID 19 because she could not go back to her house. Two of us are over 70 and the other 2 will be turning 70 soon and we take care of each other. Every night we would watch Jeopardy and our friend said the best time of the day together is when we watched Jeopardy.
3-3.5 stars
I have been a fan of Jeopardy since I was a kid. I loved getting to know its host a bit better. I loved the chapter titles and the banter between Alex and Ken Jennings during their narrations. Only thing that bothered me was that many of the chapters felt a bit choppy and unfinished. It was a quick and enjoyable read.
I decided on the audiobook after seeing that Alex Trebek does some narrating himself but was a little disappointed that he didn’t do the majority of the book. Some chapters are extremely short and unrelated but after a few you realize this book is more like highlights of his life or moments he thought were worth telling. I actually kind of like that he did it like this because I never felt bored with unnecessary details. I also really appreciated the behind the scenes of Jeopardy that he chose to share. Super quick and easy read.
This is an extremely informative and honest memoir by the host of Jeopardy who as found a special place in my heart since I have watched the show since I was a child, albeit with Art Fleming as the host. I really enjoyed finding out more about Alex Trebek, and the way he wrote made me feel like I was in his living room (or sitting with him on his porch swing) and just talking with him about the high points and low points of his life. He is painfully honest at times, including about his imminent and unavoidable death. Lovely memoir written by a real gentleman!
Disclaimer
Disclosure of Material Connection: I checked out a copy of this book from my local library using the Overdrive App. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions expressed are my own.
Excellent biography.