The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World
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A.J. Jacobs has totally charmed me. I’m fully swooning. He’s an interesting person doing interesting things, and I like hearing about it. I recently read (and loved) The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the BIble as Literally as Possible and decided that I simply must consume more of his content.
This book is yet another humble quest; here, he reads the entire Encyclopedia (2002 version). It’s 32 volumes, each weighing four pounds, coming to a total of 44 million words.
How does one write a book about this grueling endeavor? Well, he goes in order from A-Z, highlighting some of his favorite facts while interspersing his personal life. For example, he notes the word “majuscule” (the official name for an uppercase letter) because he sees the word used in an episode of Jeopardy, which he then uses as a launching point to talk about the time he interviewed Alex Trebek for Esquire. So, as a reader, we get to learn things and hear about his dope life.
He also gets a little philosophical. He has accumulated so much knowledge about the history of humanity and he emerges with pearls of wisdom that come with a widened perspective. He also explores the nature of intelligence and whether or not this is a fruitful endeavor for him, which results in him putting his crystallized intelligence to the test as a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Once again– dope guy doing dope shit.
Overall, while I continue to really enjoy Jacobs’ quirkiness and humor, this book got a little old/repetitive towards the end. I started losing steam, whereas I couldn’t get enough of The Year of Living Biblically. I would recommend that over this, even though this book was still plenty interesting in its own right. The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World receives 4 out of 5 flames.
