First sentence:
"I know the name of Turkey's leading avant-garde publication."
Description:
Part memoir and part education (or lack thereof), The Know-It-All chronicles NPR contributor A. J. Jacobs's hilarious, enlightening, and seemingly impossible quest to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z.
To fill the ever-widening gaps in his Ivy League education, A. J. Jacobs sets for himself the daunting task of reading all thirty-two volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His wife, Julie, tells him it's a waste of time, his friends believe he is losing his mind, and his father, a brilliant attorney who had once attempted the same feat and quit somewhere around Borneo, is encouraging but unconvinced.
With self-deprecating wit and a disarming frankness, The Know-It-All recounts the unexpected and comically disruptive effects Operation Encyclopedia has on every part of Jacobs's life -- from his newly minted marriage to his complicated relationship with his father and the rest of his charmingly eccentric New York family to his day job as an editor at Esquire. Jacobs's project tests the outer limits of his stamina and forces him to explore the real meaning of intelligence as he endeavors to join Mensa, win a spot on Jeopardy!, and absorb 33,000 pages of learning. On his journey he stumbles upon some of the strangest, funniest, and most profound facts about every topic under the sun, all while battling fatigue, ridicule, and a struggle between the all-consuming quest for factual knowledge and the undeniable gift of hard-won wisdom." -- from the back cover
My thoughts:
A book about reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica? Wouldn't it be boring? Well, not this book! Jacobs doesn't just relay the entries from A to Z but adds his comments and thoughts about what he learns both from the volumes and the events and people in his life. Some of my favorite portions include his visiting the Chicago headquarters and learns how entries are created, checked, and indexed as well as his preparation for and participation on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
Date read: 12/19/2024
Genre: Memoir
Rating: 3*/5 = good
ISBN-10: 0743250621
ISBN-13: 9780743250627
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks
Year: 2004
# of pages: 388
Binding: Trade Paperback
LibraryThing page
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