Ken Jennings has 5 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 5 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 13 ratings. The most-rated is Planet Funny.
Planet Funny
Summary
From the brilliantly witty and exuberant New York Times best-selling author Ken Jennings, a history of humor - from fart jokes on clay Sumerian tablets all the way up to the latest Twitter gags and Facebook memes - that tells the story of how comedy came to rule the modern world. For millennia of human history, the future belonged to the strong. To the parent who could kill the most animals with sticks and to the child who could survive the winter or the epidemic. When the Industrial Revolution came, masters of business efficiency prospered instead, and after that we placed our hope in scientific visionaries. Today, in a clear sign of evolution totally sliding off the rails, our most coveted trait is not strength or productivity or even innovation but being funny. Yes, funniness. Consider: presidential candidates now have to prepare funny "zingers" for debates. Newspaper headlines and church marquees, once fairly staid affairs, must now be clever, stuffed with puns and winks. 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- those terrifying laminated cards about the possibilities of fire, explosion, depressurization, and drowning - have been replaced by joke-filled videos with multimillion-dollar budgets and dance routines. In 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. Entertaining, astounding, and completely head-scratching, Planet Funny is a full taxonomy of what spawned and defines the modern sense of humor. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2018 Ken Jennings (P)2018 Simon & Schuster Audio
Maphead
Summary
It comes as no surprise that, as a kid, Jeopardy! legend Ken Jennings slept with a bulky Hammond world atlas by his pillow every night. Maphead recounts his lifelong love affair with geography and explores why maps have always been so fascinating to him and to fellow enthusiasts everywhere. Jennings takes listeners on a world tour of geogeeks from the London Map Fair to the bowels of the Library of Congress, from the prepubescent geniuses at the National Geographic Bee to the computer programmers at Google Earth. Each chapter delves into a different aspect of map culture: highpointing, geocaching, road atlas rallying, even the "unreal estate" charted on the maps of fiction and fantasy. He also considers the ways in which cartography has shaped our history, suggesting that the impulse to make and read maps is as relevant today as it has ever been. From the "Here be dragons" parchment maps of the Age of Discovery to the spinning globes of grade school to the postmodern revolution of digital maps and GPS, Maphead is filled with intriguing details, engaging anecdotes, and enlightening analysis. If you're an inveterate map lover yourself---or even if you're among the cartographically clueless who can get lost in a supermarket---let Ken Jennings be your guide to the strange world of mapheads.
©2011 Ken Jennings (P)2011 Tantor
The Serving Leader
Summary
It's people who make organizations great, so how can leaders best help their people achieve that greatness? As Ken Jennings and John Stahl-Wert show in this new edition of their best seller, you can't just demand greatness - you have to inspire it. The most effective leaders don't just stand in front of their people, they stand behind them too. As one of the characters in the book notes, "You qualify to be first by putting other people first." This concept sounds paradoxical, but it leads to extraordinary outcomes - and The Serving Leader shows precisely how and why. While Jennings and Stahl-Wert use a compelling fictional story to outline the basics of serving leadership, all the characters in it are based on real people; the organizations depicted are based on real organizations, and the results they achieve are what really happened. This edition features a new foreword by Ken Blanchard, a new introduction, and a new chapter checking back in with Mike, the main character, to see what he has learned in the 12 years since he embraced serving leadership. On one level this is the most practical guide available to implementing serving leadership; on a deeper level, it is a book about the personal journey of growth that real leadership requires. Great organizations are great because they're filled with people who freely choose to do their very best. It's a maddeningly simple concept, yet it's stunningly hard to execute. Jennings and Stahl-Wert show leaders how to earn that kind of commitment.
©2003, 2004, 2016 Ken Jennings, John Stahl-Wert, and the Blanchard Family Partnership (P)2016 Ken Jennings, John Stahl-Wert, and the Blanchard Family Partnership
Answers in the Form of Questions
Summary
What is the smartest, most celebrated game show of all time? In this insider's guide, discover the rich history of Jeopardy! - the beloved game show that has shaped our culture and entertained audiences for years. Jeopardy! is a lot of things: record-setting game show, beloved family tradition, and proving ground for many of North America's best and brightest. Nearly four decades into its current edition, Jeopardy! now finds itself facing unprecedented change. This is the chronicle of how the show became a cross-generational touchstone and where it's going next. Answers in the Form of Questions dives deep behind the scenes, with longtime host Alex Trebek talking about his life and legacy and the show's producers and writers explaining how they put together the nightly game. Listeners will travel to bar trivia showdowns with the show's biggest winners and training sessions with trivia whizzes prepping for their shot onstage. And they'll discover new tales of the show's most notable moments - like the time the Clue Crew almost slid off a glacier - and learn how celebrity cameos and Saturday Night Live spoofs built a television mainstay. Answers in the Form of Questions looks to the past - and the future - to explain what Jeopardy! really is: a tradition unlike any other.
©2020 Claire McNear and Ken Jennings (P)2020 Twelve
The Greater Goal
Summary
One of the most powerful forces on Earth is an organization fully aligned, individual by individual, team by team, to achieve mutual success. In this vivid business story, Ken Jennings and Heather Hyde provide a road map to guide leaders through the process of engaging employees at all levels of the organization to find the deeper meaning and higher purposes of their work. Learning these methods is Alex Beckley, a leader who receives a wake-up call that inspires him to live and lead differently. He discovers how to invite his coworkers to join a cause, not just a company - to commit to a Greater Goal - and lead the process of shared goal achievement. Alex learns the Star Model, a process encompassing five practices that can help you discover and deliver on your own purpose and passions, in alignment with many others, to accomplish something good and great. Come along on the adventure!
©2012 Ken Jennings and Heather Hyde (P)2013 Ken Jennings and Heather Hyde