The Answer Is....Reflections on My Life by Alex Trebek

 "Curiosity has always been a very important factor in my life---about all subjects. It's a thirst for knowledge. I have a standard motto and it's very short: 'A good education and a kind heart will serve you well throughout your entire life.' The more you know, the more knowledge you acquire, the better off you are in dealing with other people---the more you develop an understanding for other people."

                      -Alex Trebek

After the death of Alex Trebek very recently, I watched a TV documentary and learned a lot about the guy I thought of as just the host of "Jeopardy!" and there is so much more to know! It turns out he is very much a philanthropist and a family man. I requested the book from the library almost as soon as it was released, not really knowing Trebek's death was imminent. It took a while to receive it, showing how popular he is.

An easy and quick read with many photographs, this memoir/autobiography is a delight. Trebek tells of his early years in Canada, his first jobs and working his way through college, his start as a  radio announcer and finally his career as a game show host. I didn't realize he hosted several different ones before "Jeopardy!"---"$128,000 Question," "Battle Stars," "Pitfall," "Double Dare," "Stars on Ice," "High Rollers"---some in Canada and some in the US. At the time of his death, he had hosted "Jeopardy!" for 36 seasons and won numerous awards. 

He relates sweet family stories about his wife and grown children. He shares experiences on "Jeopardy!" with some well-known contestants and some not-so-famous. His charity work is inspiring---travel and work in Africa with World Vision and visiting troops with the USO, not to mention generous donations to many philanthropic efforts. Of course he shares some of his battle with pancreatic cancer, as well.

The title certainly refers to his work on "Jeopardy!" and so does the format of the book. Each of the short chapter titles begin with Who Is..., What Is..., The Answer Is... followed by a hint at the topic. 

"Jeopardy!" is still showing games recorded with Alex through December. It is bittersweet watching the show and realizing he is gone. One can't help but wonder who will replace him as host. Some wonder if it might be Ken Jennings, a charismatic record-setting contestant. 

I enjoyed the book---rating it a 5---and read it quickly so I can pass it on to a close friend who also enjoys the show.  I have considered myself a "Jeopardy!" fan for years and now I have become an Alex Trebek fan! 

2020 Page Turners Book Rankings

Book Rankings 2020

1    Molokai by Alan Brennert  (4.5)

2    News of the World by Paulette Jiles  (4.3)

3    To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey (4.2)

      The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (4.2)

4    The Winemaker's Wife by Kristin Harmel (4.1)

5    The Alice Network by Kate Quinn (4.0)

6    Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate (3.9)

7    World Without End by Ken Follett (3.8)

8    Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance (3.5)

9    The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson (3.2)

10  The True Jesus by David Limbaugh (2.5)

Open House by Katie Sise

 "Sometimes---though she'd never admitted this to anyone---she felt Emma reverberating through her own body like the aftermath of a slap, like the ghost of her sister lived inside her and wanted the truth known."

                         -Haley's thoughts from the novel

Wow! This book held me in its clutches but not for long. I finished it in 3 days. It was advertised as a novel of suspense and it certainly lived up to that billing!

Haley McCullough's older sister has been gone for 10 years, presumed dead although a body has never been found. Haley is still grieving and experiencing anxiety when a discovery of possible evidence is reported, giving her and her parents hope for some closure.

Haley's sister, Emma, vanished from a party in the woods with college friends and in frequent flashbacks she tells her story, revealing little by little what happened to her. So many attendees at the party should have known something about Emma's disappearance but claimed ignorance: best friend Josie, her brother Chris and current husband Noah; Emma's college art professor Priya and her doctor-husband and Haley's current anatomy instructor, Brad; even Haley's fiancé Dean is not above suspicion.

Short chapters, a fast-paced plot, foreshadowing and this reader's constantly changing predictions of who the culprit might be made for quite a page-turner! Literary value, maybe not much. Entertainment value, a rating of 5!

News of the World by Paulette Jiles

 "To comfort himself and slow down his mind he thought of his time as a courier, a runner, and Maria Luisa and his daughters. Maybe life is just carrying news. Surviving to carry the news. Maybe we have just one message, and it is delivered to us when we are born and we are never sure what it says; it may have nothing to do with us personally but it must be carried by hand through a life, all the way, and at the end handed over, sealed.

                         -the Captain's musings from the novel

This book was chosen as a 2020 selection for Page Turners partly because it was available as a Book Bundle (collection of books of the same title) from our public library. Sadly when it came time to read it, COVID19 prevented the distribution of copies. I was able to order a copy from the library but before the print copy arrived, I received the audio version on CDs. I began listening in my car. The narrator is quite good, sounding like the main character, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, might have spoken. I didn't think I was going to like the book so much but it is historical fiction so I gave it a chance. I ended up enjoying it very much.

The Captain is a 70-something retired soldier and an itinerant reader of the news of the world. He travels around Texas reading to paying audiences. While in Wichita Falls ( North Texas) he is paid to take a 10-year-old girl rescued by the Army from the Kiowa natives back to her aunt and uncle near San Antonio. Johanna Leonberger's parents were killed at the time she was kidnapped and she has been living with the tribe for at least 4 years, long enough to forget her name, the English language and to feel the Kiowa are her only family. She presents quite a challenge for a while until Cho-henna learns to trust the Kep-dun. 

In A Note from the Author, one learns that according to historical records, people taken captive by the natives "became Indian in every way and rarely readjusted when returned to their non-native families. They always wished to return to their adoptive families, even when they had been with their Indian families for less than a year." I found this intriguing.

The author provides a map of the journey which is treacherous with rivers to cross and bad guys to avoid. So the plot is exciting in parts but with some doses of humor along the way. Example: The Captain describes his deceased son-in-law as "too big to be a human being and too small to be a locomotive." In another instance someone describes a couple of brothers who might cause trouble as both "one brick short of a load." Often Johanna's pronunciations of English words would make me smile.

I loved the ending which I shall not reveal. Perhaps you can predict it. I rate the book a 5.

A film version of "News of the World" will have a Christmas release. It stars Tom Hanks as the Captain. I can hardly wait to see it!

More after Page Turners meet...

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We had 17 members at our Zoom meeting, including one new person. News of the World was well-liked with almost all ratings either 4 or 5.  One participant said she would have liked to give it a 6! Our average was 4.3 making it the second highest of the year's 11 books. 

A number of folks enjoyed the humor, as I did. Most agreed the main characters were likeable and the ending was quite satisfying. 

I showed a trailer of the film version and several showed an interest in seeing it together, if possible. I am trying to include the link here.

https://youtu.be/zTZDb_iKooI

Honeysuckle Season by Mary Ellen Taylor

 "Olivia had locked away so many memories over the years that they had tangle together. She feared a tug on one would unravel the entire lot. Confession might be good for the soul, but by her way of thinking, it did little else. Her secret had served a purpose, and if keeping it meant her soul was bound to this earth forever, then so be it."                        -from the novel

Libby McKenzie returns to Bluestone, VA after experiencing a series of profound losses---multiple miscarriages, divorce and the death of her father. She has taken up freelance photography and when she "shoots" a wedding at the Woodmont Estate, a series of mysteries and family secrets begin to be revealed. The estate is now owned by Elaine Grant, a descendant of the wealthy Carter family who is attempting to restore Woodmont to a semblance of its former glory. Included in the renovation is a curious greenhouse overgrown with honeysuckle vines.

There are multiple time settings starting with 1994, then flashing back to the early 1940's and the unlikely friendship of Olivia Carter and Sadie Thompson. The story moves forward again to Libby's story of 2020 but revisits the earlier time frequently. Along with the changes in time, numerous characters are introduced and I found it all a bit confusing at times.

I found Honeysuckle Season satisfying but I can't say I found it memorable or that I loved it so I will give it a 3 rating.

Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey

 "Of course, we're made up of what we've forgotten too, what we've tried to bury or suppress. Some forgetting is necessary and the mind works to shield us from things that are too painful; even so, some aspect of trauma lives on in the body, from which it can reemerge unexpectedly. Even when I was trying to bury the past, there were moments from those lost years that kept coming back, rising to mind unbidden."                                  -from the memoir

I was invited to participate in an intergenerational book study of Memorial Drive. A couple of other seniors and I would be reading and discussing the book along with students in the UCF Honors College. The book was chosen by their professor and it was an excellent choice because of the multi-age perspective of the author in her memoir.

Natasha Trethewey identifies as "a child of miscegenation" (a new word for me); her mother was black and her father, white. Her first years were spent in Mississippi where mixed-race marriage was not universally accepted. The family lived near maternal relatives. I especially liked Tasha's grandmother and Aunt Sugar, a feisty lady. When her parents divorced, 6-year-old Tasha and her mother relocated to Atlanta and within the year her mother, Gwen, met a man she would soon marry. Tasha calls him "Big Joe" and doesn't like him from the start.

Early in the book, subtitled A Daughter's Memoir, we know that Tasha's mother was murdered but the who, how and why are revealed little by little and not until the final chapters do we learn details, making it something of a page-turner. The author lost her mother when she was only 19 and spent some 30 years subduing the memory before she decided to return to Memorial Drive in Atlanta, where the tragedy occurred. There she confronted her memories and sought ways of reconnecting with her mother's life while filling in gaps in her own.

Ms. Trethewey has a very lyrical style of writing and uses imagery and figurative language to great affect. It is not surprising to note she is a poet and, in fact, won a Pulitzer for Poetry in 2007 and was the US Poet Laureate from 2012-2013. The order of her story is not chronological, moving back and forth in time, a bit confusing for the reader. It is interesting to note that Natasha's father was a writer and exposed her to the classics and mythology at a very young age and even predicted she "would have to become a writer, that because of the nature of [my] experience I would have something necessary to say."

Although I wished the book had included photographs, the author's descriptions are vivid. On the book jacket, there is a lovely picture of Natasha as a baby with her mother. 

This memoir was poignant, not really entertaining, but thought-provoking and powerfully written. I will rate it a 4.