The Know-It-All

Finally finished reading -

The The Know-It-All;
One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World.

This is my kind of book. This guy decided to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica from cover to cover (32 books and 33,000 pages) while trying to remember as much as he can. (He tells why in the book.)

He talks about things like how he tries to use the trivia knowledge when he can, going on the Who Wants to be a Millionaire? game show, his meetings with Mensa and other encounters with smart people. It's a funny book and you get to learn a lot of things. (See my other blog http://stuff-of-interest.blogspot.com for my favorite facts from the book.)

My one main problem with the book is that he occasionally throws in a curse word when something or someone frustrates him. In a book that's funny and about knowledge, it just seems really out of place.

(For those who are not overly familiar with American culture, this next thing will not make any sense.)
"Walt Disney's early collaborator was Ub Iwreks. Ub and Walt's first creation was Oswald the Rabbit, but they had to abandon him in a copyright dispute. Another reminder of how different life could be: Rabbiteers, thousands of kids wearing rabbit hats, Oswald-the-Rabbit politics."

His conclusion on what he had learned by reading the whole thing contains one especially nice line -

"I know that morality lies in even the smallest decisions, like whether to pick up and throw away a napkin."

1984

Well written (in the late 40's) - a really good book especially appropriate today with Bush's "War on Terror." Orwell's future society is however based more on if the Soviet Communist model had taken over the world. Can be a bit depressing for some people though.

The movie was incredible also.