“The Know-It-All : One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World” (A. J. Jacobs)

The Know-It-All : One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World was a fun read. The premise of the book is that the author, A.J. Jacobs, commits to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, from A to Z. The book itself is essentially a published journal; it reads just like a weblog, with each “entry” of his book corresponding to an actual entry in the Encyclopedia. The book is filled with fun, interesting facts, notwithstanding that I remember absolutely none of them now (I read it last month). Along with the mountains of useless trivia, Jacobs recounts his struggles to read all of the volumes, his relationship with his family, joining Mensa, participating in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, among others.

The book received favorable reviews from the press, though the New York Times book review was particularly harsh.

[This] faithfully [captures] the flavor of Jacobs’s interminable book: corny, juvenile, smug, tired. Jacobs — a poor man’s Dave Barry; no, a bag person’s Dave Barry — has a modus operandi: to drift through the encyclopedia he supposedly read, yank out an entry, tear open his Industrial-Strength Comedy Handbook and jerry-build a lame wisecrack… Jacobs, lacking his own voice, produces more than 350 pages of these excruciating rib-ticklers, all sounding like shtick that Mel Brooks retired in 1963. The lead zeppelin jokes are interspersed with musings about his wife’s pregnancy and his interaction with his quirky family. This material is even less entertaining.

Though the review was harsh, it led to an entertaining scuffle played out on the Times Op-Ed between the reviewer (Queenan) and A.J. Jacobs.

I spent weeks fuming over his attack on my sense of humor. He called me “a poor man’s Dave Barry; no, a bag person’s Dave Barry.” That’s absurd. I am actually a bag person’s David Sedaris. As for Queenan’s comedic credentials, well, I don’t want to sink to his level. O.K., maybe just dip down. I’d never been a big fan of Queenan’s tediously grumpy shtick. I’d always put him alongside Mark Russell — the bow-tied PBS satirist who sings wacky songs about tort reform — in a pile of humor professionals I could safely ignore. A real Mencken manqué.