TERRI SCHLICHENMEYER The Bookworm Sez Advertisement

It's the middle of the evening and there you sit in your recliner, potato chips at your side and remote in your hand. Hmm. One of those game shows is on.

Those people aren't very smart. The questions are eeeeeeasy. You're answering them much faster than the contestants are. You'd be a kajillionaire by now, if you were on a game show.

Or maybe not.

Put your future earnings on the line. Plunk down some cash, pick up "Brainiac" by Ken Jennings -- you know, that Jeopardy! guy -- and see what it's really like to be a competitor on a major game show.

From the time he was a toddler, Ken Jennings says that he was an information sponge.

He soaked up everything he could learn about the world around him, devouring books and hoarding silly facts in his brain. Nothing was too arcane, nothing too insignificant to be remembered.

Game show junkie that he was, he remembers "reporting" various show outcomes to his grandparents every night via telephone. When pre-kindergarten testing was done, Jennings was already reading at a seventh-grade level and doing math at a fifth-grade level.

So what does a smart guy like that do when he grows up? Well, he goes to college to be an English major, switches to computer programming at some point, and plays on college quiz bowls, competing against other information sponges like himself.

Jennings says he watched every game show he could catch, including ones that aired decades before he was born.

He dreamed of getting a chance to play on the Holy Grail of game shows: Jeopardy! So when try-outs were announced, Jennings and a friend drove to California to see what would happen.

The rest is game-show history. Now, Jennings points out, his months-long winning streak on Jeopardy! has become a trivia question in itself.

But what about that word, "trivia"? Is trivia all that trivial?

No, Jennings says. It's a rich world with geeks, nerds, teachers, part-time porn stars, housewives, and people just like you. It's the fast-fingered college student who memorizes obscure facts for bragging rights. It's the fact-collector who was once a trivia icon. It's an entire Wisconsin county that plays a 54-hour trivia marathon every April. It's a couple of down-and-out guys in Canada who created a board game that created a craze.

Quicker than a lightning round, more dizzying than a spin on the wheel, author Jennings pulls back the little door to reveal the world of trivia in this charmingly informative book that's part biography, part investigating journalism and part romance (with trivia, of course).

Knowledge buffs will be happy to see that Jennings scatters fun facts and clues throughout this book, with answers at the end of each chapter. Casual game-show watchers will receive lovely parting gifts of Jennings' gentle humor and slight nerdiness.

If you're a trivia nut or a game-show fan, then buzz in, come on down, make a deal, pick a square and get this book. For you, "Brainiac" is far from trivial.

"Brainiac" by Ken Jennings, Villard, $23.95, 288 pages.