The Book of the Day: 'The Know-it-All' by A.J. Jacobs

Would Reading the Whole Encyclopedia Britannica Actually Make You Smarter?

Welcome to The Book of the Day, a new feature in which members of our community spotlight some of our favorite reading material - the mainstays of our personal libraries! We want to note that, while we wish God of the Desert Books could take credit for many of these favorites, they're in no way affiliated with us, and we're not earning anything by promoting them. Books of the Day are just honest-to-goodness recommendations: writing we like a lot and think you'll like, too.

Today, we're featuring the humorous memoir The Know-it-All, by AJ Jacobs. 

What if you could actually make yourself smarter? Would that mean increasing your brain's capacity to process information? Would it simply mean cramming more information in? Or would it require a combination of both strategies? A.J. Jacobs doesn't know for sure, but in this unique memoir, he shares the results of his yearlong quest to read the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica and become "the smartest man in the world."