The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs

I was pretty excited about this book, having heard about it on the illustrious Saturday Edition with Scott Simon on NPR, so Ben bought it for me for Christmas. I'm up to P now and it's starting to wear on my nerves. Some of the reviews on Amazon said the author was whiny and full of himself and such, and I wouldn't say I agree with that. The author reminds me a bit of Woody Allen, who is good in small doses, but 368 pages worth of his brand of self-deprecating humor can get to be a bit much. It is making me want to read the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica, though. If my opinion changes for the better or worse by the end of the book, I'll update.

Okay, here's an update: I just re-read the above post after posting my latest entry and I feel like maybe I was a little too harsh on A.J. Jacobs. The book did seem to improve as I moved on past the P section, and I was interested by the author's musings on the nature of intelligence and I really liked the parts about going on the millionaire show. By the end of the book, I was willing to say it was a good read and that I'd recommend it to others. In fact, Ben is reading it right now.