Blue Lives in Jeopardy


Book Description

A major theme in Blue Lives in Jeopardy is the very disturbing trend for law enforcement officers. More and more officers are being systematically targeted for assassination merely because they wear a badge. In some cases, officers are ambushed or taken by surprise with their weapon still in their holster. In chapters three through eight of this book, the victim officers were shot before they could draw their weapon. The most glaring example of an outright assassination was the murder of CHP Officer Thomas Steiner, who was shot by a sixteen-year-old who wanted to impress a street gang he wished to join.Valuable and instructive components of these books are the "Lessons Learned" segments that appear at the end of each chapter. Former LAPD Captain Greg Meyer is one of the nation's foremost experts on police tactics and officer safety, having lectured and provided expert testimony on these topics throughout the country over the years. He has provided his expertise and insights to this book. These reflections can hopefully assist officers in recognizing dangerous situations and enhance officer safety.




The Answer Is . . .


Book Description

Longtime Jeopardy! host and television icon Alex Trebek reflects on his life and career. When he debuted as the host of Jeopardy! in 1984, Alex Trebek became something like a family member to millions of television viewers, bringing entertainment and education into their homes five nights a week. In 2019, he made the stunning announcement that he had been diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer. What followed was an incredible outpouring of love and kindness. Social media was flooded with messages of support, and the Jeopardy! studio received boxes of cards and letters offering guidance, encouragement, and prayers. For more than three decades, Trebek had resisted countless appeals to write a book about his life. Yet he was moved so much by all the goodwill, he felt compelled to finally share his story. “I want people to know a little more about the person they have been cheering on for the past year,” he writes. The book combines illuminating personal anecdotes with Trebek’s thoughts on a range of topics, including marriage, parenthood, education, success, spirituality, and philanthropy. Trebek also addresses the questions asked most often by Jeopardy! fans, such as what prompted him to shave his signature mustache, his insights on legendary players like Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer, and his opinion of Will Ferrell’s Saturday Night Live impersonation. The book uses a novel structure inspired by Jeopardy! and features dozens of never-before-seen photos that candidly capture Trebek over the years. This wise, charming, and inspiring book is further evidence of why Trebek has long been considered one of the most beloved and respected figures in entertainment.




Final Jeopardy


Book Description

The “charming and terrifying” story of IBM’s breakthrough in artificial intelligence, from the Business Week technology writer and author of The Numerati (Publishers Weekly, starred review). For centuries, people have dreamed of creating a machine that thinks like a human. Scientists have made progress: computers can now beat chess grandmasters and help prevent terrorist attacks. Yet we still await a machine that exhibits the rich complexity of human thought—one that doesn’t just crunch numbers, or take us to a relevant web page, but understands and communicates with us. With the creation of Watson, IBM’s Jeopardy!-playing computer, we are one step closer to that goal. In Final Jeopardy, Stephen Baker traces the arc of Watson’s “life,” from its birth in the IBM labs to its big night on the podium. We meet Hollywood moguls and Jeopardy! masters, genius computer programmers and ambitious scientists, including Watson’s eccentric creator, David Ferrucci. We see how Watson’s breakthroughs and the future of artificial intelligence could transform medicine, law, marketing, and even science itself, as machines process huge amounts of data at lightning speed, answer our questions, and possibly come up with new hypotheses. As fast and fun as the game itself, Final Jeopardy shows how smart machines will fit into our world—and how they’ll disrupt it. “The place to go if you’re really interested in this version of the quest for creating Artificial Intelligence.” —The Seattle Times “Like Tracy Kidder’s Soul of a New Machine, Baker’s book finds us at the dawn of a singularity. It’s an excellent case study, and does good double duty as a Philip K. Dick scenario, too.” —Kirkus Reviews “Like a cross between Born Yesterday and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Baker’s narrative is both . . . an entertaining romp through the field of artificial intelligence—and a sobering glimpse of things to come.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review




The Black and the Blue


Book Description

During his 28-year career, Matthew Horace rose through the ranks from a police officer working the beat to a federal agent working criminal cases in some of the toughest communities in America to a highly decorated federal law enforcement executive managing high-profile investigations nationwide. Yet it was not until seven years into his service- when Horace found himself face down on the ground with a gun pointed at his head by a white fellow officer-that he fully understood the racism seething within America's police departments. Through gut-wrenching reportage, on-the-ground research, and personal accounts from interviews with police and government officials around the country, Horace presents an insider's examination of archaic police tactics. He dissects some of the nation's most highly publicized police shootings and communities to explain how these systems and tactics have hurt the people they serve, revealing the mistakes that have stoked racist policing, sky-high incarceration rates, and an epidemic of violence. "Horace's authority as an experienced officer, as well as his obvious integrity and courage, provides the book with a gravitas." -- The Washington Post "The Black and the Blue is an affirmation of the critical need for criminal justice reform, all the more urgent because it/DIVDIVcomes from an insider who respects his profession yet is willing to reveal its flaws." -- USA Today




The Jeopardy! Book of Answers


Book Description

2019 UPDATED EDITION – FEATURING THE JEOPARDY! ALL-STAR GAMES “This is Jeopardy!” Celebrate the thirty-fifth anniversary of America’s Favorite Quiz Show® with The Jeopardy! Book of Answers. In honor of this extraordinary milestone, the show’s producers have selected fifteen historic games from over seven thousand episodes that illustrate why the show is every bit as timely—and as lively—as it was the moment that Alex Trebek first took the stage in 1984. You’ll meet Ken Jennings in his first win, and you’ll be there for the stunning end of his record-breaking run. Experience again the epic battle of Man vs. Machine with IBM’s Watson computer. Follow the Celebrity Invitational Finals with $1,000,000 on the line for charity. Get the play-by-play for championship showdowns, memorable tournaments, and so much more. Each game includes the complete text of the Jeopardy!, Double Jeopardy!, and Final Jeopardy! rounds along with exclusive behind-the-scenes details and photos. Get to know the contestants, and, for the first time in print, you’ll get untold stories from the staff behind some of our most popular players, games, and competitions. Who knows? It may even inspire you to become the next Jeopardy! champion! From the very first Jeopardy! episode to the exciting come-from-behind finish of last season’s Tournament of Champions, The Jeopardy! Book of Answers is a must-have for any fan.




Blue Lives Matter - In the Line of Duty


Book Description

Blue Lives Matter is a book that explores the line-of-duty deaths suffered by the law enforcement "blue" family. This book examines the deaths of eight police officers and one police canine in Los Angeles County. The chapters portray the fallen officers and the canine as true heroes who each made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their community. The cases include the murder of two officers solved over 40 years later; an officer murdered in front of his young son; two officers kidnapped and taken to an onion field where one officer is executed; an undercover officer murdered during a multi-million dollar drug transaction; an off-duty officer murdered by two gang members while riding his bicycle; and a cop-killer who fled to Mexico to avoid prosecution. Co-authors Steve Cooley and Bob Schirn discuss each case in detail. Each chapter discusses the incident that cost the officer his life. The court proceedings are reviewed, including victim impact testimony of the effect of the officer's death on family members and fellow officers. A Lessons Learned segment in each chapter is designed to increase officer safety and awareness of dangerous situations. Steve Cooley is a career prosecutor who served three full terms as the District Attorney of Los Angeles County. He was a reserve police officer for LAPD. He is uniquely positioned to discuss his involvement in each case and eminently qualified to provide perspectives and opinions on each case.




Reincarnation Blues


Book Description

A wildly imaginative novel about a man who is reincarnated over ten thousand lifetimes to be with his one true love: Death herself. “Tales of gods and men akin to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman as penned by a kindred spirit of Douglas Adams.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) First we live. Then we die. And then . . . we get another try? Ten thousand tries, to be exact. Ten thousand lives to “get it right.” Answer all the Big Questions. Achieve Wisdom. And Become One with Everything. Milo has had 9,995 chances so far and has just five more lives to earn a place in the cosmic soul. If he doesn’t make the cut, oblivion awaits. But all Milo really wants is to fall forever into the arms of Death. Or Suzie, as he calls her. More than just Milo’s lover throughout his countless layovers in the Afterlife, Suzie is literally his reason for living—as he dives into one new existence after another, praying for the day he’ll never have to leave her side again. But Reincarnation Blues is more than a great love story: Every journey from cradle to grave offers Milo more pieces of the great cosmic puzzle—if only he can piece them together in time to finally understand what it means to be part of something bigger than infinity. As darkly enchanting as the works of Neil Gaiman and as wisely hilarious as Kurt Vonnegut’s, Michael Poore’s Reincarnation Blues is the story of everything that makes life profound, beautiful, absurd, and heartbreaking. Because it’s more than Milo and Suzie’s story. It’s your story, too. Praise for Reincarnation Blues “The most fun you’ll have reading about a man who has been killed by both catapult and car accident.”—NPR “This book made me laugh out loud. And then a page later, it made me sob. Reminiscent of Tom Robbins and Christopher Moore, Poore finds humor in the dark absurdities of life.”—Chicago Review of Books “Charming . . . surprisingly light and uplifting . . . It reads like a writer having fun.”—New York Journal of Books




Police Heroes


Book Description

Readers meet police officers from all over the country who take their oath seriously, and when confronted with life-threatening circumstances, have acted courageously. This book is filled with riveting stories about America's finest, a moving tribute to unsung heroes. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.




Planet Funny


Book Description

A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year The witty and exuberant New York Times bestselling author and record-setting Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings relays the history of humor in “lively, insightful, and crawling with goofy factlings,” (Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go Bernadette)—from fart jokes on clay Sumerian tablets to the latest Twitter gags and Facebook memes. Where once society’s most coveted trait might have been strength or intelligence or honor, today, in a clear sign of evolution sliding off the trails, it is being funny. Yes, funniness. Consider: Super Bowl commercials don’t try to sell you anymore; they try to make you laugh. Airline safety tutorials—those terrifying laminated cards about the possibilities of fire, explosion, depressurization, and drowning—have been replaced by joke-filled videos with multimillion-dollar budgets and dance routines. Thanks to social media, we now have a whole Twitterverse of amateur comedians riffing around the world at all hours of the day—and many of them even get popular enough online to go pro and take over TV. In his “smartly structured, soundly argued, and yes—pretty darn funny” (Booklist, starred review) Planet Funny, Ken Jennings explores this brave new comedic world and what it means—or doesn’t—to be funny in it now. Tracing the evolution of humor from the caveman days to the bawdy middle-class antics of Chaucer to Monty Python’s game-changing silliness to the fast-paced meta-humor of The Simpsons, Jennings explains how we built our humor-saturated modern age, where lots of us get our news from comedy shows and a comic figure can even be elected President of the United States purely on showmanship. “Fascinating, entertaining and—I’m being dead serious here—important” (A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically), Planet Funny is a full taxonomy of what spawned and defines the modern sense of humor.