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33,000 pages
44 million words
10 billion years of history
1 obsessed man
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, shall we say, 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 the paralyzing fear that attends his first real-life responsibility -- the impending birth of his first child.
The Know-It-All is an ingenious, mightily entertaining memoir of one man's intellect, neuroses, and obsessions and a soul-searching, ultimately touching struggle between the all-consuming quest for factual knowledge and the undeniable gift of hard-won wisdom.
- Sales Rank: #502122 in Books
- Published on: 2004-09-21
- Released on: 2004-09-21
- Format: Deckle Edge
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.25" h x 1.22" w x 6.25" l, 1.48 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 400 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Imagine, the original Berserkers were "savage Norse soldiers" of the Middle Ages who went into battle stark naked! Or consider the Etruscan habit of writing in "boustrophedon style." Intrigued? Well, either hunker down with your own Encyclopædia Britannica, or buy Esquire editor Jacobs's memoir of the year he spent reading all 32 volumes of the 2002 edition—that's 33,000 pages with some 44 million words. Jacobs set out on this delightfully eccentric endeavor attempting to become the "smartest person in the world," although he agrees smart doesn't mean wise. Apart from the sheer pleasure of scaling a major intellectual mountain, Jacobs figured reading the encyclopedia from beginning to end would fill some gaps in his formal education and greatly increase his "quirkiness factor." Reading alphabetically through whole topics he never knew existed meant he'd accumulate huge quantities of trivia to insert into conversations with unsuspecting victims. As his wife shunned him and cocktail party guests edged away, Jacobs started testing his knowledge in a hilarious series of humiliating adventures: hobnobbing at Mensa meetings, shuffling off to chess houses, trying out for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, visiting his old prep school, even competing on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Indeed, one of the book's strongest parts is its laugh-out-loud humor. Jacobs's ability to juxtapose his quirky, sardonic wit with oddball trivia make this one of the season's most unusual books.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School - When Jacobs, a pop-culture junkie and magazine editor, got a bee in his bonnet to read the entire abridged set of the Encyclopedia Britannica to stave off the decline of his recalled knowledge, his wife, family, and coworkers looked on with disbelief, amusement, and annoyance. They thought he'd give up on his quest, but fortunately he did not, for his recap manages to impart the joys of learning, along with a lot of laughs. The alphabetical arrangement of his book allows Jacobs to share highlights, many of which show his fixation on the morbid, the insane, and the grotesque in history. Cortés had syphilis. Descartes had a fetish for cross-eyed women. Throughout, the author digresses with anecdotes about such things as his trip to a Mensa meeting, his visit with Alex Trebek, and (mainly) his wife's attempts to get pregnant. While the pregnancy woes probably won't hold the same resonance with teens as with adults, they are all short, and soon there is another funny or gross item. As Jacobs wraps up, he leaves readers with the sense of satisfaction and wistfulness that often occurs when finishing a particularly satisfying book, only multiplied by the magnitude of what he has accomplished. This is a love note to human knowledge and the joys of obtaining it. - Jamie Watson, Harford County Public Library, MD
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Bookmarks Magazine
We’re in looking glass territory here, as many reviewers spent as much time on New York Times Book Review Queenan’s hack-job as they did on Esquire editor Jacobs’s book. Reviews of reviews are always awkward, especially when they flock to the defense of a book as harmless as Jacobs’s. Maybe Know-It-All isn’t an intellectual treatise; but, then again, it isn’t meant to be. Its pop culture-obsessed author clearly is out for some fun, often at his own expense. The alphabetical structure and wisecracking prose only underscore the playfulness of The Know-It-All, even if it gets certain factoids wrong. Which begs the question: what side of the "A" volume did Queenan wake up on? One must assume the backside.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Really, he read the entire encyclopedia.
By Mark Pfennigstag
Very entertaining. A humorous account of a professional writer's pursuit of his goal of reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, his wife's tolerance of his objective and progress, and of his family's, friend's and co-workers endorsement and skepticism. Author offers both humorous and profound insights as he works through 22 volumes, 33 thousand pages in his attempt to absorb the entire corpus of human knowledge according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. Many laugh-out-loud moments in this book.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
You'll laugh out loud!
By whitequeen
I love this book, so much so that I've given away 4 copies to friends and family. More than a collection of facts (*fascinating* facts, by the way), it's the story of how the author deals with integrating these facts into his life. The stories of how he slips them into daily conversations are hilarious! He actually learns a lot about himself and the deeper things in life in his
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
funny, but i got bored before the end
By Mark Oestreicher
i picked up a.j. jacobs' "the year of living biblically" way after most people had read it, and totally loved it. so i decided to go back and read his first bestseller -- the know it all.
"biblically" was about the author's year of trying to live everything in the bible as literally as possible. seems jacobs likes these year long challenges as writing fodder, because "the know it all" is about his personal challenge of reading the entire encyclopedia britannica in one year.
as you can imagine, reading the entire encyclopedia is quite the daunting task. and jacobs attempted to not just skim it, but actually hold onto all that information (hence the subtitle). of course, this wasn't possible.
the book is really an alphabetical collection of mini-essays -- some on the actual stuff he was learning in the EB, and some on his life that year, using topics from the EB as jumping-off points.
jacobs is witty and narcissistic (in a way that works for a writer). and the book is generally a fun read. but it took me longer to finish than any book i've read in the past few years. seriously, i think i plunked along in it (while reading other books simultaneously) for about three months. crazy. and i think the reason it took me so pickin' long is because, at the end of the day, it's really just a very long collection of witty mini-essays -- like an encyclopedia that's fun to read. without a narrative arc (and, even most non-fiction books have a narrative arc), i just got... restless. i was going to say i got bored, but that wasn't quite accurate. i just really wanted to finish the book.
so, fun read. but, ultimately, it wasn't sustainable for me.
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