The Know-It-Almost-All

This guy named A.J. Jacobs read through the entire 2002 Encyclopedia Britannica (all 32 volumes). This is a feat that I admire tremendously; I'm sure many blogreaders do as well. In fact, my curiosity about Switzerland's Aar river, Aardvarks, and Hank Aaron is piqued already. The 32 volumes contained 33,000 pages and 44 million words. Last year he wrote a 400-page book titled The Know-It-All about his experiences with this project. This book is available on audio as well, either on CD or cassette, unabridged. I am a big fan of audiobooks (Note: This is the correct term; "Books on Tape" is a specific brand name, like "Kleenex") and I'd be just as happy to listen to this as read it.

Here's the thing that drives me beserk: That someone would think that it was a good idea to release an abridged version of his book on compact disc!! Slap!

The whole theme of TKIA is completion; They should save abridgements for the guy who writes about the experience of reading a year's worth of People Magazine.