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  • Book cover of Still Whispering After All These Years
    Bob Harris

     · 2015

    The gripping autobiography of broadcasting legend 'Whispering' Bob Harris.

  • Book cover of The Whispering Years
    Bob Harris

     · 2001

    Bob Harris is best known as the face of the premier live music show in the 1970s, The Old Grey Whistle Test, but his trademark 'whisper' has always given him a distinctive presence on radio. Now after 30 years in the music business Bob tells the story of his roller coaster journey. From the young passionate music fan who moved to London in the late 60s determined to make music his life, he carved a niche for himself in music journalism by cofounding Time Out and launched his radio career with Sounds Of The Seventies on Radio 1. The Old Grey Whistle Test soon followed and during the years he fronted the programme, he interviewed, and toured and hung out with some of the biggest names in music: Marc Bolan, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Queen, the Bee Gees, John Lennon... However it hasn't all been good. His career has had as many downs as ups (he has rebuilt it four times); he's been married three times and near bankrupted and hounded for his record collection by a fellow DJ. Yet 30 years on from his first broadcast, with strong and loyal audiences for his two shows on Radio 2, Bob is still driven by his passion for music.

  • Book cover of The International Bank of Bob
    Bob Harris

     · 2013

    Explains how the author was compelled to help the world's working poor, describing how he discovered the Kiva.org micro-loan portal and his visits to world regions where the organization's loans have enabled people and small businesses to revitalize.

  • Book cover of Prisoner of Trebekistan
    Bob Harris

     · 2006

    Welcome to the world of Jeopardy! where obscure information is crucial to survival, vast sums of cash are at stake, and milliseconds can change not just a game but the course of your entire life. Prisoner of Trebekistan is Bob Harris’s hilarious, insightful account of one man’s unlikely epic journey through Jeopardy!, gleefully exploring triumph and failure, the nature of memory, and how knowledge itself can transform you in unpredictable ways—all against the backdrop of the most popular quiz show in history. Bob chronicles his transformation from a struggling stand-up comic who repeatedly fails the Jeopardy! audition test into an elite player competing against the show’s most powerful brains. To get there, he embarks on a series of intense study sessions, using his sense of humor to transform conventional memory skills into a refreshingly playful approach to learning that’s as amusing as it is powerful. What follows is not only a captivating series of high-stakes wins and losses on Jeopardy!, but also a growing appreciation of a borderless world that Bob calls Trebekistan, where a love of learning reigns and the smarter you get the more you realize how much you don’t yet know. Filled with secrets that only a veteran contestant could share—from counterintuitive game strategies to Jedi-like tactics with the Jeopardy! signaling device—Prisoner of Trebekistan also gives you the chance to play along with the actual clues that led to victory or defeat in high-level tournaments, plus candid, moving reflections on how the games affected Bob’s offstage life—and vice versa. Not only an irresistible treat for Jeopardy! fans, Prisoner of Trebekistan is a delight for anyone who loves a rollicking tale that celebrates the unpredictability of life and the sneaky way it has of teaching us the things that really matter.

  • Book cover of Growing Wild Mushrooms
    Bob Harris

     · 2003

    This step-by-step guide introduces the beginning mushroom cultivator to everything he needs to know, from sterile culture procedures to indoor bottle gardens to indoor/outdoor compost gardens. Ten chapters cover equipment, growing media, compost, small indoor quantities, starting cultures, and incubation. Black-and-white line drawings and half-tones complement the 16 full color photos taken by the author, founder of the mail order business Mushroom People.

  • Book cover of Steal this Book and Get Life Without Parole
    Bob Harris

     · 1999

    Join political comedian and noted Jeopardy! show-off Bob Harris as he tears into the lunacies of modern American politics, media, and culture. Harris's loopy, self-effacing humor camouflage a remarkable knowledge of economics, history, and the sciences behind pop culture references and a common sense style.Called both a Thinking Man's Humorist and a Comedian For The Common Man, what makes Harris unique is respect for his audience -- he never forgets that the common man and the thinking man are often one and the same.

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  • Book cover of Motor City Rock and Roll

    Detroit is famous for its cars and its music. From the 1950s through the 1970s, Motor City fans experienced a golden age of rock and roll. Rock was the defiant voice of the boomer generation. The 1960s and the 1970s were turbulent decades. Blacks and women asserted themselves, breaking down the establishment. Rock music, and the spirit and events that defined it, advanced these interests. The war in Vietnam brought tension and national conflict. Drugs and a sexual revolution, made possible by the introduction of the birth control pill, added to the volatile mix. Woodstock, May Day protests, and the resignation of Pres. Richard Nixon were just a few of the upheavals that made these decades two of the most important in the nation's history. Motor City Rock and Roll: The 1960s and 1970s features 200 images, capturing local musicians who started in Detroit and then traveled the world, as well as world-famous acts who came to the city to perform. Intimate stories of musicians, bands, and other members of the rock community make this history a must for dedicated fans.

  • Book cover of Who Hates Whom
    Bob Harris

     · 2007

    An “absorbing, breezy, and—ultimately—hopeful” (Ken Jennings) guide to world conflicts, from the large and important to the completely absurd. “A handy history of violence that is at once surprising, fascinating, enlightening, and surprisingly not totally depressing.”—John Hodgeman, author of The Areas of My Expertise and former correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart The daily news gives you events but rarely context. So what do al-Qaeda, North Korea, and Iran really want? Which faction is which in Iraq and who’s arming whom? What’s the deal with Somalia, Darfur, and Kashmir? Israel and Palestine, Hamas and Hezbollah? Who Hates Whom, a seriously amusing look at global humanity—and the lack thereof—presents global chaos made simple. Topics include: • Which countries are fighting over an uninhabitable glacier with no real strategic value—at an annual cost of half a billion dollars? • Which underreported war has been the deadliest since World War II—worse even than Vietnam—with a continuing aftermath worse than most current conflicts combined? • Which royal family members were respected as gods—until the crown prince machine-gunned the king and queen? • Which country’s high school students think the Nazis had a “good side”? Which nation’s readers recently put Mein Kampf on the bestseller list? And which other country watches itself with four million security cameras? (Hint: All three are U.S. allies.) Detailed with over fifty original maps, photographs, and illustrations, Who Hates Whom summarizes more than thirty global hotspots with concise essays, eye-catching diagrams, and (where possible) glimmers of kindness and hope.

  • Book cover of Politics and the Rise of the Press
    Bob Harris

     · 2008

    Politics and the Rise of the Press compares the rise of the newspaper press in Britain and France, and assesses how it influenced political life and political culture. From its social, economic and political sources, to its importance for the middling ranks in eighteenth-century British society, and its transformation after the French revolution. This detailed, comparative account, which also contains considerable original research on the early Scottish press, will be of value to all students of French and British history of the period.