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430 reviews for:
The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World
A.J. Jacobs
3.71 AVERAGE
430 reviews for:
The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World
A.J. Jacobs
3.71 AVERAGE
I read this for a book club; if it weren't for that, I might have stopped in the middle of the "A" section. Jacobs professes to be reading the encyclopedia to become a lot smarter. He professes to be insecure about his intelligence, which seems weird for a guy who had gone to top-notch schools and had already published a couple of books. In any case, the book is organized by letter, and he lists a few entries from each letter and his reaction to it. Intermixed in this is the story of his relationship with his father and his brother-in-law (both smarties who he wants to beat, smarts-wise) and the struggle that he and his wife have to have a baby. It's a light book and not a difficult read, but it's not very compelling either and I was left with the impression that Jacob's self-deprecation might be a gimmick to sell the book.
The Know-It-All is basically an encyclopedia with humor. This is the memoir of a man that decided one day to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica from A-Z, which is no small feat. Written from A-Z you gain insight into random information in a way that is easy to understand and actually makes you eager for more! Not only do you get tidbits of a variety of things you also learn about the author and his life between entries. You learn about his and his wife's attempt to start a family, his venture out to visit Alex Trebek and get onto Jeopardy and the rest of his crazy family and all that entails.
I love reading memoirs, and this is one on my hits list! I'd highly recommend it!!!
I love reading memoirs, and this is one on my hits list! I'd highly recommend it!!!
Enjoyable and format makes it perfect for interrupted reading - no major plot lines or crazy character relationships to recall. Lots of random interesting fun facts and a rare book that I expect both Matt and I would enjoy. Sort of in the vein of Bill Bryson - humorous, obsessive and lots of trivia - but instead of a travel memoir it is a memoir of reading the EB.
A truly fun, compelling read. I enjoyed both the intriguing facts Jacobs tosses to the reader, as well as his ruminations on what it truly means to be intelligent. Jacobs is a personable, entertaining narrator; I often found myself laughing aloud.
This was part terrific, like I'd expect, but part potty-mouth and inappropriate topics. Yikes. But the good parts were very funny and good.
A.J. Jacobs sets out to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica in a year & learns quite a lot along the way, which he imparts to the reader in ways sometimes personal, sometimes factual - the book follows an A to Z format with "entries" based on bits he's read that day in the EB. His comments are sometimes sincere, sometimes snarky, sometimes just really, really funny, and occasionally you want to throw the book across the room! Yeah, it's kind of annoying that he & his wife have the money to undertake this kind of self-indulgent project at all, while living in their Manhattan apartment & visiting his family in the Hamptons & undergoing all kinds of expensive fertility treatments. And that he can get the Self Indulgent Project published when supposedly the publishing world is coming to an end & no one is buying books anymore & What With the Economy & All, & The World is Slowly Grinding to A Halt! But that was kind of what I enjoyed about the book too. What better time in the world to just read something ridiculously funny & pointless?! I liked coming across random facts that I didn't know (without having to read the EB myself!) & random bits of hilarity, & I liked what Jacobs ends up learning from his project. A cynical, depressed hypochondriac - by his own admission - Jacobs ends up deciding that Homo Sapiens is a pretty good species after all, & that things really are better now than they have ever been before, & that there is hope - because we really do find cures for diseases, we sign peace treaties, & we write great books & poetry & create great art & music. He writes, "for all its terrifying problems, now is the best time to be alive," and he's excited for his son to be born into the world. This is a fun book - & sometimes that's all you need!
A perfectly fine book- you should kind of know what you’re getting, and it delivers well enough. Jacobs is good at selecting what might be interesting to others while bypassing the boring bits, I appreciate that. At the same time, some of the personal asides are a bit off. I really don’t care about his rivalry with Eric, the one-liners get stale, and his (spoiler) reaction to finding out he’s to have a baby boy is just.. ugh, a crude joke that sticks with me (spoiler: he feels the nurse sounds impressed at the size of his unborn baby’s.. manhood. It’s a small detail, obviously, but seriously wtf?). Anyways- but of light reading after some heavy ones for me, so I like the random facts and interest in general knowledge. There are no deeper insights here, there are a few fun excursions (Mensa, who wants to be a millionaire). Overall an interesting read. I do wish he’d been more thorough on his schedule though- how many hours a day? 100 pages, I believe, was the requirement, but did he ever do more or less? Just curious. Still, if you want some select highlights from the EB without actually having to read it- boom, here you are.
i learned that once, charles dickens visited the white house and when no one answered the door when he knocked, he just walked in. after wandering around for a bit he found a room full of people hanging out, spitting on the floor. he wrote that he hoped the spit-cleaning help was paid well. i like charles dickens a little bit more now.