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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.
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