A few years back, A.J. Jacobs was feeling like a bit of a nincompoop. At the age of thirty-five, he had long ago forgotten everything from his Nietzsche seminar at Brown University. His work life, writing for the likes of Entertainment Weekly and Esquire, inspired a concern for all things superficial: movie stars, boy bands, breast implants. One day he awoke to the realization that he could quote The Simpsons better than Song of Myself, and thus embarked on a self-prescribed campaign to get smart. And not just a little smart—he set out to become the smartest person ever by reading all thirty-two volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. In transferring its contents to his brain, he sought to whittle down the experience and came up with the book, The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World. As you might imagine, Jacobs learned a lot through the experience, much if not most of it the kind of stuff that goes far beyond book-learnin’. (He also won—and lost—a lot of money when he put his smarts to the test on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?) Here, Jacobs pares things down even further in telling us what he’d take along on a desert-island exile:
1. The F volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. So I could study the fish section and figure out which were edible, and which would cause me to have a seizure. Also, I can never read enough about Farinelli, the famous eighteenth century castrato.
2. A crwth. Maybe not my most useful pick, but it’s my favorite word in the Encyclopaedia. It’s a Welsh musical instrument similar to a harp. And if you’re ever stuck with a Scrabble rack that has no vowels, it’s a word you need to know. Plus, it’d be good to have some music to pass the time.
3. The P volume of the Encyclopaedia. Which contains the most inspiring paragraph I have ever read: “We were born of risen apes, not fallen angels. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished.” Amen!
4. A photo of my six-month-old son Jasper doing his favorite pose, the fist-in-the-air/fight-the-power gesture.
5. A Mattell electronic football game. The primitive handheld one with red blips on the screen from the eighties. Still my favorite video game.
Alternate: The N volume of the Encyclopaedia. I’ll have plenty of time to contemplate the Number Games section, which includes little-known math tricks such as “3 X 37 = 111. 6 X 37 = 222. 9 X 37 = 333.” Well, it beats thinking about lack of food.
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