By A. J. Jacobs
Half memoir and half schooling (or lack thereof), The Know-It-All chronicles NPR contributor A.J. Jacobs's hilarious, enlightening, and doubtless very unlikely quest to learn the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z.
33,000 PAGES
forty four MILLION WORDS
10 BILLION YEARS OF HISTORY
1 OBSESSED MAN
To fill the ever-widening gaps in his Ivy League schooling, A.J. Jacobs units for himself the daunting job of analyzing all thirty-two volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His spouse, Julie, tells him it is a waste of time, his pals think he's wasting his brain, and his father, a super lawyer who had as soon as tried an analogous feat and give up someplace round Borneo, is encouraging yet unconvinced.
With self-deprecating wit and a disarming frankness, The Know-It-All recounts the unforeseen and comically disruptive results Operation Encyclopedia has on all the things of Jacobs's existence -- from his newly minted marriage to his advanced dating together with his father and the remainder of his charmingly eccentric ny family members to his day activity as an editor at Esquire. Jacobs's venture checks the outer limits of his stamina and forces him to discover the genuine which means of intelligence as he endeavors to affix Mensa, win a place on Jeopardy!, and take up 33,000 pages of studying. On his trip he stumbles upon many of the strangest, funniest, and so much profound proof approximately each subject lower than the solar, all whereas struggling with fatigue, ridicule, and the paralyzing worry that attends his first real-life accountability -- the approaching delivery of his first child.
The Know-It-All is an inventive, mightily pleasing memoir of 1 man's mind, neuroses, and obsessions, and a fight among the all-consuming quest for genuine wisdom and the indisputable reward of hard-won knowledge.
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Extra info for The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World
On reflection, the revelation approximately my intelligence--the one encouraged via the studious Hasidic boys--wasn't precisely the manufactured from wonderful good judgment. there isn't an ideal correlation among hours of examining and intelligence. probably there is little or no correlation in any respect. after all, I do detect i am committing an analogous fallacy at once, twenty-three years later. Deep down, i do know that studying the encyclopedia and jamming my mind jam-packed with evidence will not unavoidably permit me to reclaim my identify because the smartest individual alive. i do know my quest is a little bit a lark. i do know it has got a whiff--or probably greater than a whiff--of the absurd. And simply in case i did not comprehend, i am always being informed this via family and friends. My aunt Marti, who lives in Berkeley and is often able to voice her skepticism, no matter if it truly is approximately our phallocentric executive or our reliance on oppressive Western medication, faced me in a telephone name the opposite day. "Now, why are you examining the encyclopedia back? " "I'm attempting to develop into the neatest guy on this planet. " "And how are you defining intelligence? simply the volume of data you might have? " "Yup. " "Well, that isn't very clever. " "Well, i have never gotten to the letter I. " it really is a simple reaction, yet there is something to it. i am not so deluded that i feel i'm going to achieve one IQ aspect for each thousand pages. i do not in truth imagine that the folk from the MacArthur genius furnish may be kicking down my door. yet I additionally think that there's a few hyperlink among wisdom and intelligence. perhaps wisdom is the gasoline and intelligence is the automobile? probably proof are the flying buttresses and intelligence is the cathedral? i do not recognize the precise relation. yet i am definite the Britannica, someplace in these forty four million phrases, may also help me determine it out. augury you could are expecting the long run in accordance with cube (cleromancy), dots on paper (geomancy), fireplace and smoke (pyromancy), entrails of sacrificed animals (haruspicy), animal livers (hepatoscopy), or shoulder blades of animals (scapulimancy). that they had me up until eventually the loopy shoulder blades half. Aztec The A's were awful with Aztecs. They popped up lower than every kind of headings, together with American Peoples, Arts of local and Alcohol and Drug intake (they referred to as magic mushrooms "God's flesh"). And right here they're back, below undeniable outdated Aztec. due to the Britannica, I now understand the Aztecs prophesied the destruction of the earth by way of an age while people turn into monkeys. hello, that is the plot of Planet of the Apes! rattling you, Hollywood! You stole the belief from the Aztecs. rattling you to hell! I polish off the monkey-fixated Aztecs, and similar to that, i am performed with the A's. it has been weeks, and i'm now one twenty-sixth of my approach to the summit. i've got absorbed three. eight percentage of all of the wisdom on the earth. I slam my Britannica close and perform a little landing dance. sure! i'm the alpha male. And but, do i believe smarter? Have I proved my skeptical aunt Marti fallacious but? good, i know much more info, yet in a manner, i am feeling extra insecure than ever.