Know-it-all

The Know-it-all: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World, A.J. Jacobs. 2004


This novel by A.J. Jacobs is a tribute to a feat he managed to accomplish in 2004: he read the entire 2002 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. In this yearlong project, Jacobs reads all thirty-two volumes, 65,000 entries and 44 million words all the while managing to maintain his humour... and his job as an editor at Esquire Magazine.


This novel could have been incredibly dry and as boring as reading a shortened version of an encyclopaedia, but Jacobs keeps the reader entertained with his antics and his attempts at becoming "the smartest person alive". He tries to get on Jeopardy! and Who Wants to be a Millionaire. He takes classes on speed reading and memory retention. He finds a loop-hole to join Mensa and takes part in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Through all of these seemingly intellectual pursuits, does A.J. Jacobs become the smartest person alive? Well he certainly does become a man full of trivial, mindless and yet still impertinent information... I certainly wouldn't want to play against him in Trivial Pursuit now! 


My recommendation for this book is that it is for anyone looking for something lighthearted, but be careful you might just end up learning something. Definitely something anyone would enjoy thanks to Jacobs' style of writing. It's witty and interesting and the background story has enough substance so that the reader doesn't feel like they are actually reading the encyclopaedia along with him. 


Other books by Jacobs, soon to be reviewed: 
The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment















*****

xoxo