I Know You Are, But What am I?

The Know-it-All

A.J. Jacobs

Simon and Schuster

Part memoir, part compendium of obscure and admittedly, often interesting fact, The Know-it-All is the written record of A.J. Jacobs' journey through the Encyclopaedia Britannica.  Yep, that's right kids  -- the man read the whole damn thing.   In his "spare" time.   Um, yeah.  And you people thought I was nerdy.

I'm not going to lie to you.  I actually enjoyed this book a great deal.  Jacobs managed to find a good balance between presenting some of the quirkier bits of the EB and sharing some of the quirkier bits of his private life.  Over the course of the year that it took him to finish this immense task, Jacobs and his wife were also trying to get pregnant.  I hardly think that a thirty-two tome oeuvre was always the best aphrodisiac, but he was sure able to educate his wife on the testicle size of elephants and the sexual habits of the bandicoot.  The poor woman.

While there are parts of this book that are only skim worthy, if you like words, puzzles, trivia and history, The Know-it-All is a fine read.  I  definitely admire Jacobs' determination -- I'm not sure that I could have finished.  Three pairs of reading glasses out of five.