Audiobook Review: The Answer Is...Reflections on My Life by Alex Trebek

The Answer is…Reflections on My Life
by Alex Trebek, audiobook narrated by Ken Jennings and Alex Trebek (Compact Disc Biography Trebek)

Despite turning down multiple offers/requests for him to write his own autobiography over the years, Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek changed his mind and chose to write this charming little look back over the highlights of his life (and his time on Jeopardy!), in response to the outpouring of love and support he received after he publicly shared his diagnosis of stage four pancreatic cancer in early 2019. His reasoning was that all the people who were showering him with good wishes might like a peek into the real life of the person they admired so much.

 

The result is The Answer is…, a sweet, gentle look at the hurdles a young Canadian television entertainer had to jump over on his way towards ultimately achieving fame as the intellectual host of one of TV’s longest-running, and most-respected, game shows. Fully half of this book is Trebek’s memories from across the entire history of Jeopardy!, from the early days of first being cast as host of the revived show, to the many memorable competitors he met during his 30-year run behind the podium. However, interspersed among the Jeopardy! musings are Trebek’s memories of his early years on Canadian television, and the many failed US game shows he hosted before striking Jeopardy! gold. He shares candid comments about both of his marriages and his children, as well as his relationship to his divorced parents. And, he is frank about the difficulties in facing the threat of cancer.

 

Sadly, as we all know, Trebek succumbed to the disease in 2020, at the age of 80, but not before finishing his work on the audiobook version of The Answer is… However, due to his cancer treatments, he tired easily, and the audiobook’s producers brought in Jeopardy!‘s “greatest of all time” winner, Ken Jennings, to do 80% of the audiobook’s narration. Trebek himself takes over a few key chapters (including one about Jennings himself), but the two men share some witty banter as they exchange narrative duties. This was part of the charming nature of listening to this on audio, and I highly recommend The Answer is… as an audiobook! Trebek was a comforting presence for decades, and I enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about him…directly from his own memories.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Who is Alex Trebek? by Lisa Rogak, an unauthorized biography released about the same time as this autobiography from Trebek himself. Also The Jeopardy! Book: The Answers, the Questions, the Facts and the Stories of the Greatest Game Show in History credited to Alex Trebek, or Answers in the Form of Questions: A Definitive History and Insider’s Guide to Jeopardy! by Claire McNear.)

 

( publisher’s official The Answer Is… web page ) | ( Alex Trebek page on Wikipedia ) | ( official Jeopardy! web site )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!