IN THE FORM OF A QUESTION

The Jeopardy! champion turns in a wryly funny memoir.

“How are you so smart?” The question has dogged Schneider since childhood. The author is undeniably smart and not at all disinclined to show it off, whether with a joke about Immanuel Kant or a disquisition on English etymology and the virtues of knowing a little something about it. Other questions emerged after Schneider won a whopping $1,382,000 purse on her two-month championship run: “How does it feel to be so successful? What are you going to do with the money? How does it feel to be so trans?” About all these things, she has much to say. Clearly, the author is comfortable with the fame and money, and she is a winningly clear-voiced and often irreverent champion of trans rights as well. “Trans people are just people. They need to pee sometimes. Let them,” she writes regarding gender bathroom controversies. On an equally personal note, Schneider enumerates what might be perceived as weaknesses that turn out to be Jeopardy! superpowers. For example, “ADD made me literally addicted to learning,” and because the game rewards a broad base of knowledge more than mastery of a particular subject (incidentally, Schneider holds a doctorate in computer science), neurodivergence proved useful. Fittingly, the author darts from subject to subject: a complex love life, memories of teachers great and terrible, experimentation with drugs, notes on a political scene that finds her “targeted because many of my fellow citizens wish me ill, and base their vote at least in part on whether or not it will hurt me.” Would-be Jeopardy! contestants should turn to Bob Harris’ Prisoner of Trebekistan for the nuts and bolts of game play, but for a funny, memorable, philosophical take on life, Schneider’s book is far and away the winner.

Only incidentally about the show that won her fame, but a pleasure and an education awaits in the reading.