One Library Gal’s Obsession with Jeopardy

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It’s hard to say exactly when I became a die-hard fan of Jeopardy. Growing up, I dabbled here and there. Catching an episode with my parents, flexing my general knowledge skills for the family (there’s a reason why my specialty here at VPL is general services). It turns out there are some benefits to a liberal arts degree after all. In all seriousness, I love the approach the show takes to trivia, which mirrors the general trivia ethos, if you will. The questions can be about almost anything, covering wide swathes of subjects, time periods, historical movements, cultures, and geographies. The value is in knowing a bit about many things, versus doing a deep dive into one limited area. Somewhere along the way (and I think COVID had something to do with this), we started recording every single episode. Now, there is a cache of riches just waiting for us in our PVR all the time. The goal is to watch an episode every day, but sometimes things get in the way: illness, vacations, plans, etc. Most days, I like to turn it on just as we’re sitting down to supper. It’s a lovely accompaniment to a nice piece of salmon or a tofu stir fry. During the lockdown, we watched daily. I remember tracing the trajectory of Alex Trebek’s illness. From the moment he disclosed his diagnosis and the fact that he would be undergoing aggressive treatment, to the minuscule changes in his appearance that would appear from one episode to the next. It was heartbreaking, of course, but there he was hosting the show nonetheless. Such an impressive individual in so many ways. My dream is to be on the show as a contestant. That would be everything to me, but who knows? There’s a test you have to take online called the “Anytime test.” One of these days, I’ll get that call from the Jeopardy producers, and they’ll fly me to New York or some place glamorous for the final interview. I will wow them with my dazzling intellect, and the rest will be history. It turns out, we have a fair number of items related to Jeopardy in our catalogue. A couple of autobiographies from key figures, a non-fiction book about Jeopardy history, and of course trivia for you to brush up before the big test. I hope there’s something here that tickles your Jeopardy fancy!

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New Year, Improved Me!

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Photo by Single.Earth on Unsplash

I’ll be honest folks; I’m tired. I miss the sun and being warm and am very much in need of a vacation. So this is gonna be a relaxed post featuring, unsurprisingly, resolutions. This year, I’m taking it easy with my aspirations. I’m making my goals small, simple, and (hopefully) achievable. Also, crucially, my list of resolutions is short. I’m not looking to revamp my whole self within a measly 12 months, but I am looking to build further on who I already am and improve my habits.

Which, coincidentally, is quite similar to what we’ve done with our reading challenge! The broad strokes are the same—read a certain type of book a month—but the prompts are different and, most excitingly, we are now offering a prize!

That’s right, if you take on the challenge and submit the log by email or in-person, you’ll be entered into the Grand Prize Draw: your choice of a private cooking session at VMC in the VSES Teaching Kitchen, or a guided maker session with one of our Creation Specialists at Pierre Berton Resource Library or Civic Centre Resource Library!

And actually, that ties into resolution #1: to read 12 books this year.

The twist is, they have to be books I own. Why? Because my personal library is 90% books I’ve never gotten around to reading. (Disclaimer: I got most of them for free, so I don’t feel too guilty about it.) And I do want to read them, but because I own them, there’s no sense of urgency to actually do so. Nobody’s waiting to borrow them and there are no due dates. Therefore, I’ve put it off and put it off. So here are three books I own that I’d like to read in 2025!

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Secret Santa Part 100: (Not So) Secret Santa’s Shelf Pick Delivery Service

A pile of gifts that are vaguely book shaped.

There are only four1 of us, and I’m going last, so ‘surprise’ Sumayyah! I’m your HOTS Secret Santa. I hope I can live up to the standards you set when you kicked off this initiative, which our fellow writers have upheld for the past couple of weeks. So now I have three tough acts to follow, and poor Sumayyah has had to wait most of a month to get her Secret Santa shelf picks. This post is also going live on Christmas Day, so I’m too late for the rest of our readers to get physical copies of any of these books before we reopen on the 27th. To that end, if we have both a digital and physical copy of an item, the picture will be a link to the digital, while the text will be to the physical. A final note before we dive in: it will probably shock you to the core2 that I haven’t read every book I’ve ever recommended on the HOTS blog3. There are too many books and not enough time. I do read/watch/listen widely, though, so to give proper Secret Santa recs to Sumayyah, everything in this post is something I’ve gone through myself at one point or another. This has the added benefit of improving the recs for the rest of our readers, which is a lovely side effect. So read on for some reading recommendations tailored to Sumayyah, but hopefully relevant to your interests as well.

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