Customer Reviews

Secrets of the Jeopardy Champions

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If you are going to be on Jeopardy, you need two books. The first one is Bob Harris' "Prisoner of Trebekistan" which teaches you how to play and how to study. And in that book Harris mentions this one: "Secrets of the Jeopardy Champions."

This book is nothing but a study guide. It is a list of facts arranged by subject and presented for Jeopardy purposes only. There is no story, just the facts. It's pretty awesome for US Presidents, the bible, mythology, Shakespeare, opera, potent potables, and literature. The literature section is especially good. They give you a list of (almost) every author you need to know, their major works, and even tell you which actors were in the movie versions of the books and plays. You have to learn every single name in the book.

Problems: the book is 20 years old, so the music and TV sections are not at all up to date; the Oscar winners are missing the last 20 years; the Presidents stop at George H.W. Bush. Foreign currency is out of date now so you'll have to check who's using the euro, and some of the countries are gone (Yugoslavia, Zaire, Czechoslovakia).

What's missing? Well, art & architecture, famous landmarks, Broadway musicals, inventors, food, maps, and everything about everything for the last 20 years. But this books is still an amazing study guide and mandatory for Jeopardy success based on the Shakespeare, opera and literature sections alone.

I studied this book religiously as I was preparing for the 1995 College Tournament. It contains a great deal of the "must-have" knowledge that you can expect on Jeopardy!: Presidential trivia, geography, literature, etc. The most notable thing lacking is a section on art/architecture.

Good review book for a Jeopardy contestant prospect. It is a little outdated, but still useful.

The book is a great review for anyone going on the show. The knowledge is quite broad and allows work/creator recognition. I used the book to worm my way into the T of C finals.

Any book of this kind will get outdated pretty quickly, but this one serves its purpose admirably. I was pleasantly surprised by the breadth of information contained in this book. Obviously it doesn't contain everything, but at least it compiles and organizes the "warhorses," subjects that have appeared repeatedly in Jeopardy! clues, such as presidents, Shakespeare, opera, literature, and geography. Use it as a source book for further study.