BOOKTALK: Game Show Host Ken Jennings, author of “MAPHEAD: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks”

Host Diana Korte speaks with Game Show Host Ken Jennings, better known now for his more recent appearances on Jeopardy, who authored MAPHEAD several years ago for all you map nerds out there.

You know who you are. Travelers, road geeks, map collectors. Some of you crisscross the map working an endless geographic checklist: visiting all 3,143 U.S. counties, for example, or all 936 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Or how about the computer brains behind Google Maps and other geo-technologies.

Ken Jennings was a map nerd from a young age himself, you will not be surprised to learn, even sleeping with a bulky Hammond atlas at the side of his pillow, in lieu of the traditional Teddy bear.

Mapheads are the ones who always know exactly where they are–and where everything else is as well.

Top authors are interviewed on this 10-minute program that captures their words about their books and ideas and often the story behind the story. The show, hosted by Diana Korte and engineered by Gene Korte, is in its 29th year of production.