The release date for the English version of 'The Know-It-All' by
A.J. Jacobs is Jan 2005. If you enjoy this novel, it is available for buy as a paperback from Barnes & Noble or Indigo, as an ebook on the Amazon Kindle store, or as an audiobook on Audible.
33 000 Pages
44,000,000 Words
Ten Billions of Years in the Past
One Fixated Man
"The Know-It-All" follows NPR contributor A.J. Jacobs's amusing, educational, and apparently impossible journey to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z. It's half memoir, part education, or lack thereof.
A.J. Jacobs sets himself the difficult goal of reading all thirty-two volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in order to make up for the ever-growing holes in his Ivy League education. His friends think he's going insane, his wife Julie tells him it's a waste of time, and his father, a smart lawyer who tried the same thing once and gave up somewhere in Borneo, is supportive but not persuaded.
"The Know-It-All" describes, with self-deprecating wit and a disarming frankness, the unexpected and comically disruptive effects Operation Encyclopedia has on every aspect of Jacobs's life, from his recently married life to his complex 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 endeavor pushes the boundaries of his endurance and compels him to consider what true intellect really means as he attempts to get into Mensa, get a Jeopardy slot, and read 33,000 pages of material. As he travels, he encounters some of the most bizarre, hilarious, and thought-provoking information on any subject imaginable, all the while enduring exhaustion, mockery, and the overwhelming anxiety that comes with his first real-life responsibility—the approaching birth of his first kid.
The brilliantly funny book "The Know-It-All" explores the intelligence, neuroses, and obsessions of one guy while highlighting the conflict between the irrefutable gift of hard-won wisdom and the all-consuming pursuit of factual information.