# Whatever happened to Joel Achenbach?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-joel-achenbach/180704>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [June 9, 2003, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-joel-achenbach/180704 "2003-06-09T20:01:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![a35362](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-joel-achenbach/180704/1 "2003-06-09T20:01:32Z")

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He wrote a column called “Why Things Are” for the Washington Post for years and occasionally published collections of the columns. In 2000 he wrote occasional columns about the presidential campaign and published those in a book. Some time after that he vanished. Anyone know why, or where he is, whether he’s still writing?

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**Author:** ![chukhung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@chukhung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chukhung)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-joel-achenbach/180704/2 "2003-06-09T20:15:07Z")

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Achenbach had one of his “Rough Draft” columns published at [washingtonpost.com](http://washingtonpost.com) as recently as this March. See [http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A61232-2003Mar20&notFound=true](http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A61232-2003Mar20&notFound=true). I note that at the bottom of that column it says

> [@](#):
>
> Joel Achenbach is a staff writer on book leave.

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**Author:** ![a35362](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-joel-achenbach/180704/3 "2003-06-09T20:21:29Z")

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Oh, okay. So he’s still alive, then. Thanks.

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**Author:** ![CJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@CJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJo)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-joel-achenbach/180704/4 "2003-06-09T20:57:16Z")

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i think the real question is “What about Bob?”:dubious:

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**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-joel-achenbach/180704/5 "2003-06-09T23:07:17Z")

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Yes, I love that kind of book- Cecil Adams, Wm Poundstone, and David Feldman. However, we have seen nothing newbook-wise from any of them in a while, despite very successful series.

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**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-joel-achenbach/180704/6 "2003-06-09T23:35:47Z")

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I love those William Poundstone books, but they’re getting incredibly out of date now. I think the first _Big Secrets_ book has video game “secrets” in it for games like Space Invaders. I wish he’d write some new ones.

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**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\
**Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-joel-achenbach/180704/7 "2003-06-10T05:54:09Z")

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I think Achenbach has mostly moved on to other things. His book a couple years ago was completely unrelated to the “answering questions” type thing.

_Captured by Aliens: The Search for Life and Truth in a Very Large Universe_ is a very good read, but it is also the kind of thing I imagine sucks up a lot of time.