The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World (edit title)

Scott Daniel edited the summary of The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World Monday, November 2 2009.

• Socially maladjusted US nerd consumes all 44 million words in the Encyclopaedia Britannica then provides an alphabetical cliff’s notes of the experience. The sum of Though some might find his approach gimmicky, the partsbook is less than the whole.at once heartwarming and mind-sharpening. A real treat.

Tim W edited the summary of The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World Thursday, September 17 2009.

• Socially maladjusted US nerd consumes all 44 million words in the Encyclopaedia Britannica then provides an alphabetical cliff’s notes of the experience. The sum of the parts is less than the whole.

Tim W edited the quotations of The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World Thursday, September 17 2009.

• Added a quotation: “The Britannica is still the gold standard, the Tiffany’s of encyclopedias. Founded in 1768, it’s the longest continually published reference book in history. Over the years, the Britannica’s contributors have included Einstein, Freud and Harry Houdini. Its current roster includes dozens of academics with Nobels, Pulitzers and other types of awards with ceremonies that don’t feature commentary from Melissa Rivers. The Britannica passed through some tough times during the dot-com craze, and it long ago phased out the door-to-door salesman, but it keeps chugging along. The legendary Eleventh edition from 1911 is thought by many to be the best-it’s inspired a fervid if mild-mannered cult –but the current editions are still the greatest single source of knowledge.”
• Added a quotation: “The eleventh was the culmination of the Enlightenment, the last great work of the Age of Reason, the final instance when all human knowledge could be presented with a single point of view. Four years late, the confidence and optimism that had produced the eleventh would be, as Konig puts it, “a casualty in the slaughter at Ypres and Argonne.”
• Added a quotation: “Yes, there’s the Internet. I could try to read Google from A to Z. But the Internet’s about as reliable as publications sold next to Trident and Duracell at the supermarket checkout line. Want a quick check on the trustworthiness of the Internet? Do a search on the words ‘perffectionist’ and ‘perfestionist.’ No, I prefer my old-school books. There’s something appealingly stable about the Britannica. I don’t even want that new-fangled CD-ROM for $49 or the monthly Britannica online service. I’ll take the leatherette volumes for $1400–which is not cheap, but it’s certainly less expensive than grad school. And anyway, at the end of this, maybe I can go on Jeopardy! and win enough to buy a dozen sets.”
• Added a quotation: “Of all domestic animals, the character of the cat is the most equivocal and suspicious. He is kept, not for any amiable qualities, but purely with a view to banish rats, mice and other noxious animals from our houses… constantly bent on theft and rapine, they are full of cunning and dissimulation; they conceal their designs; seize every opportunity of doing mischief, and then fly from punishment… In a word, the cat is totally destitute of friendship.”
• Added a quotation: “We have made our lives better. A thousand times better. Never again will I mythologize the past as some sort of golden age. Remember: in the 19th Century, the mortality rate was 75 percent fro a caesarean section… the workday was fourteen hours.. the life expectancy in ancient Rome was twenty nine years. Widows had to marry their late husband’s brother. Originally forks only had one tine, and umbrellas were available only in black, and you ate four-day old fetid meat for dinner.”

Ken F edited the ridiculously simplified synopsis of The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World Thursday, August 20 2009.

• Added: Guy reads encyclopedia cover to cover, irritates wife.

Shelfari edited the description of The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World Friday, July 31 2009.

• 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 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 struggle between the all-consuming quest for factual knowledge and the undeniable gift of hard-won wisdom.

Shelfari edited the contributors of The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World Wednesday, July 22 2009.

• Added a contributor: A. J. Jacobs: (Primary Author)

Shelfari edited the first sentence of The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World Friday, July 17 2009.

• a-ak That's the first word in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.