The Know-It-All

<p>On leaving school or university you feel pretty pleased with yourself. You've learnt a lot your'e well-read and you know a whole bunch of obscure facts guaranteed at some point to appear in the questions on Mastermind or University Challenge. Then you get a job and ten years later youre more eloquent and eager to argue about Britney and Big Brother than Beckett and the Brontes. Sound familiar?<br><br>Well it happened to AJ Jacobs too. As an editor at <i>Esquire</i> Jacobs had built up a rather impressive knowledge of celebrity trivia - and the cure was going to take a long time. While others might take to reading a broadsheet at the weekend Jacobs chose to read the <i>Encyclopaedia Britannica</i>. All 33000 pages of it. <br><br>Bill Bryson meets <i>Schott's Original Miscellany</i> meets Woody Allen<i>.</i> Part assemblage of fascinating trivia part journey through adulthood all laugh-out-loud funny.</p>