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The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World | 
| Author: A. J. Jacobs
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy New: $10.20
You Save: $4.80 (32%)
Rating:  223 reviews
Sales Rank: 8384
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0743250621
Dewey Decimal Number: 031
EAN: 9780743250627
Publication Date: October 4, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
33,000 PAGES44 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 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 struggle between the all-consuming quest for factual knowledge and the undeniable gift of hard-won wisdom.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 218 more reviews...
 A great consolation in a world gone mad.. November 22, 2004
209 out of 248 found this review helpful
AJ Jacobs may not have realized his book could be seen as redemptive, or life-affirming, but to me The Know-It-All is both. I purchased this book one week after losing my dearest friend, at far too young an age, to colon cancer. At the time I was grasping at straws in a mad attempt to find something that could distract me from my grief. Nothing else was working, frankly, and I was mired in unhappiness. I'd read a review of Jacobs' book a few weeks before, and the premise sounded intriguing. When I saw it hit the bookstore shelves I decided I'd give it a try. Imagine my surprise when I found myself riveted, and able to lose myself (and thus for a time forget my sorrow) completely. Then I found myself laughing at the self-deprecating humor, and before I knew it I began to feel a certain sense of inspiration and consolation in the whole sweep of human history, despite the occasional human foibles pointed out so perceptively by Jacobs. I'll never forget that this book, and this author, helped me through one of the darkest times in my life. This book may not be such a savior to everyone, but I can't see how anyone could read it and not be charmed and instructed. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Funny, funny and now I'm smart! September 22, 2004
140 out of 171 found this review helpful
I saw this book at the bookstore and after glancing through it, I knew I had to take it home. What a funny, fuuny book. Oh....... and very informative. I can't imagine anyone actually trying to read the whole encyclopedia, from A to Z. How boring, how daunting, how strange. But oh, how glad I am this author took on this task. Funny, funny book. I found myself laughing out loud more times than I can count, and I kept wanting to share the entries as I was reading them, not just for the extra laughs, but for the really interesting tidbits the author chose to tell. Since I was alone in the house most of the time I was reading, and couldn't share anything I was reading, I went to Amazon and ordered a couple of copies for other people. I shouldn't be the only one to enjoy this book. Read this book and give one as a gift to someone you know. Well worth it.
 So this is what an inferiority complex looks like November 2, 2004
58 out of 101 found this review helpful
I know that some would say I have only myself to blame for not totally enjoying a book that is self described as being about one man's obsessional quest to read the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica (yes that is the correct spelling- it does have an extra `a' thrown into `encyclopedia') but I am still crying foul! Yes it might seem like an odd concept to start from but I problem here is not the concept of the book but the clumsy hands with which it was left to be developed by- A. J. Jacobs.
Other authors have done great work starting from similarly weird positions but my experience is that those works which turn out well use something such as reading the entire Britannica as a framework through which they can tell some greater story or explore something... this is not the case in The Know-It-All. You really might as well just be watching a video of him reading and occasionally throwing out juvenile one liners about the occasional entry. For some good examples of this check out Lauren F. Winner's Girl Meets God)
But even if you still think the book sounds interesting be warned further! While the book is in fact about an obsession of Jacobs it only involves the Encyclopaedia tangentially- his true obsession is his inferiority complex (for a while I was thinking it was more of an Oedipus complex, but by the end of the book I had settled back on inferiority). The whole endeavor is undertaken because of serious issues with his father and brother-in-law, both of whom he feels are much smarter than himself and to whom he wants to prove something. From that perspective the concept of the book becomes far less interesting; instead of being a quest towards something it is mealy a springboard to find way of slipping in about how good of a prep school he went to, or about how he met Alex Trebek, or about how he is so superior because he found a backward quotation mark in the Britannica, or how clever and witty he is, or blah blah blah.
Perhaps this self-absorption reaches it's most nauseating level when Jacobs expresses his jealousy when his middle school aged nephew is praised for his intelligence. (This goes back to my Oedipus theory about how Jacobs wants his mother to praise him and since he is by no means an alpha male has to get to her skirts through brainpower.)
But ironically apart from the frustrating personality of the author and main character the other main problem of this book is one that Jacobs himself recognizes (but somewhat ignores). Basically the problem is that the EB is just a reference work and while it can convey facts it cannot convey wisdom anymore than a truck full of bricks conveys a building. With all the pumping of facts into the very unwise and somewhat immature brain of Jacobs the reader is left to read about his week attempts at scrounging for profundity (his depth ends up at about the same level as a poem by a junior high girl would reach- more concerned with sounding deep than actually having depth.)
And he doesn't even read it all! He talks about how he just skims over some bits here and there when the reading gets too much for him in a given sitting or when the concepts are over his head!
So bottom line if you want to read something to really make you think and show you something new about life- don't read this book. If on the other hand you are looking for a case study on inferiority complexes for your psychology masters thesis- by all means this is a must read then!
One of my favorites of the year; great story July 27, 2005
49 out of 50 found this review helpful
This book came highly recommended, but I was skeptical. Nerdy pointless trivia? Becoming the "smartest person in the world" by reading Brittanica? I was even skeptical about the format--an alphabetical tour through the encyclopedia, with starting entries on a-ak, a capella, Aachen, Aaron, etc. Fortunately, Jacobs is a very talented narrator, and he had me hooked in the first few pages. His method of detailing the journey from A to Z was very effective.
This isn't random repeated trivia, it's a very good memoir. We learn about Jacobs's career at Esquire, his relationship with his wife, their on-going fertility troubles, his playfully combative relationship with his brother-in-law, and his relationship with his dad and how dad shaped Jacobs as a person. All of this is intertwined with his journey through Brittanica, and I learned a lot on the way. Jacobs also spices up his quest for knowledge by taking a speed reading class, joining Mensa and attending a gathering, meeting Alex Trebek, and trying out for Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, among other things.
There is, of course, the requisite Brittanica trivia, but Jacobs weaves it all into a cohesive narrative. He points out how many people died of syphillus, the overshadowed siblings of famous people like Charles Darwin, the many occurences of cross-eyed people and those who had fetishes for them, the "good parts" and racy pictures in the Brittanica, and so on. I also learned about ths historical biases of the encyclopedia and how the machine that is the Brittanica works.
This book has mass appeal. I know I'll be loaning it out to my family, because Jacobs tells a story most anyone can relate to. I was sad when I got to the Z's and I had to part with this talented narrator.
 Not Worth Reading October 24, 2004
42 out of 71 found this review helpful
J. A. Jacobs read the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A through Z. I made it through the letter H in J. A. Jacobs's book. A friend had seen a recommendation for the book in Esquire (no surprise we found out later, since Jacobs works for Esquire). The reviews on Amazon were generally good, the negative reviews sounding crabby. Now I know why. An interesting premise became an irritating book.
The sitcom one-liners never stop coming, as in this entry for elf: "Elves in traditional folklore sat on people's chests while they slept to give them bad dreams. They also stole human children and substituted deformed fairy children. Wonder if Santa is really a crack dealer." Now imagine a similar one-liner for every entry.
The inaccuracies. Jacobs explains that a blue moon is caused by dust particles from a forest fire. A blue moon is the second full moon in a single month, which is why the phrase "once in a blue moon" means rarely. I assume from all the typos that Simon & Schuster has laid off their proofreaders, but have they gotten rid of the fact-checkers too?
The lack of education: Jacobs does say that he started reading the Britannica to fill in gaps in his knowledge, but how can he be amazed to learn that Lincoln was the second speaker at Gettysburg - that he followed a two-hour oration with his own beautiful two-minute Gettysburg Address? Is this not taught in school anymore?
The shallowness: In an interview with Alex Trebek, Trebek talks about how overwhelmed he was, on a trip to Africa, "by the thought that this is where I'm from. I came from here." Here's Jacobs's response - "I'm not sure how to respond to this. Is Alex Trebek black? He looks pretty white to me. He looks like the quintessence, the very incarnation of whiteness." Maybe he's just going for the one-liner again. I prefer that explanation to the idea that he really thinks Trebek is, as he calls him, ditzy.
Sorry for submitting a crabby review. I was all curled up on a rainy Saturday afternoon to read an interesting book. By the Ds, I was doubting the book; by the Hs, I couldn't take it anymore. Reading the entire Britannica is an interesting gimmick. It could have been an interesting book if it were written by an interesting and interested person.
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