"A.J. Jacobs turns the act of reading the entire Britannica into a hilarious memoir. . . . It's the stunt of the book itself that allows the funny, touching memoir to be so stuffed with nutritious bits of trivia that you feel smart for reading it."

-Time

"The Know-It-All has to be one of the most entertaining and informative book reports in existence. It is charming, humorous, instructive, fascinating, even kind of inspirational. But Jacobs' book is more than that. He puts it all into the context of his life, and a text that could have been utterly dry winds up charming us with Jacobs' honesty and vulnerability. Jacobs is courageous enough to risk looking stupid by sharing his quirks and insecurities . . . and he wins the gambit. He comes across as nothing short of endearing."

-The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Tender . . . entertaining . . . this book really does seek a working definition of what it means to be smart."

-Janet Maslin, The New York Times

"Whatever genius it took to turn the weighty task of reading the entire encyclopedia into such an entertaining frolic of a book, my bet is that Jacobs had it all along."

-Entertainment Weekly

"Inspired and inspiring."

-Vanity Fair

"Charming . . . endearing . . . the book's facts will provide enough anecdotes to perk up conversations and weather the season's social events. More substantially, The Know-It-All belongs to the category of literary expeditions whose chief reward is their nudging toward a fantastic, heretofore forbidding, work."

-The Washington Post

"I fell in love with this book on page one and I have laughed out loud on every page since. With his hilarious Britannica-fed insights on life, A.J. Jacobs uncovers the profound by way of the trivial. The Know-It-All is endlessly entertaining. Genius, pure."

-Mary Roach,
New York Times best-selling author of
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

"The Know-It-All is a hilarious book and quite an impressive achievement. I've always said, why doesn't someone put out a less complete version of the encyclopedia? Well done, A.J."

-Jon Stewart,
host of The Daily Show
and New York Times best-selling author of
America (The Book)

"[A] witty, serendipitous Cook's tour of human knowledge . . . It's beach reading for smart people."

-St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"It's a pleasure to read-and you might learn something."

-Psychology Today

"The Know-It-All is funny, original, and strangely heroic. I found myself rooting on Jacobs's quixotic, totally endearing quest."

-Jonathan Safran Foer,
New York Times best-selling author of
Everything Is Illuminated

"A great book. More than just a cute treatment of trivia. A letter-perfect story about reading A-Z."

-Rocky Mountain News

"Mighty intelligent . . . It would be so easy to write about the humorous passages and give short shrift to the underlying serious inquiry into the nature of knowledge. The Know-It-All is the most serious funny book I can recall reading during my 56 years. I cannot imagine any avid reader skipping a word."

-The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"The Know-It-All is a terrific book. It's a lot shorter than the encyclopedia, and funnier, and you'll remember more of it. Plus, if it falls off the shelf onto your head, you'll live."

-P.J. O'Rourke,
New York Times best-selling author of Peace Kills

"Enormous fun . . . a comic triumph."

-Kirkus Reviews (starred)

"Jacobs' ability to juxtapose his quirky, sardonic wit with oddball trivia makes this one of the season's most unusual books."

-Publishers Weekly

"Sidesplitting."

-Time Out New York

"Hilarious . . ."

-Premiere

"Hilarious . . ."

-New York Post

"A.J. Jacobs' story of his quest is one of the year's funniest books."

-The Indianapolis Star

"The Know-It-All is a clever, wise book."

-Vancouver Sun

"Frequently funny and sometimes downright hilarious, but this is also an unexpectedly moving book."

-Daily Mail (London)

"This book, which guarantees almost a guffaw on every page, is so intriguing, I abandoned Bill Clinton's My Life on page 773, just as Ms. Lewinsky strolled into the book."

-The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina)

"Jacobs, a senior editor at Esquire, is laugh-out-loud funny as he narrates his journey through the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z, all thirty-three thousand pages of it."

-Albany Times-Union

"A very entertaining tribute to the joys of learning."

-The Independent (Sunday) (London)

"Jacobs weaves in contemporary culture and stories from his life-a winsome combination that makes this book, oddly enough, a page turner."

-USA Today

"It's education, sure, but mostly it's just plain fun-a lot more fun than reading all those dry entries yourself!"

-the Book Babes in Good Housekeeping