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The Know-It-All
- One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World
- Narrated by: Geoffrey Cantor
- Length: 15 hrs and 25 mins
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Publisher's summary
The mission began in October 2002, with the word "a-ak". The word launches hilarious misadventures through 32 volumes, as Jacobs accumulates useful and less-so knowledge, and along the way finds a deep connection with his father, examines the nature of knowledge vs. intelligence, and learns how to be rather annoying at cocktail parties.
The Know-It-All is an ingenious, mightily entertaining memoir of one man's intellect, neuroses, and obsessions, and a soul-searching, ultimately touching struggle between the obsessive quest for factual knowledge and the undeniable gift of hard-won wisdom.
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Our fearless author, A. J. Jacobs, tackles a new intellectual adventure, an exploration of the most influential book in the world: the Bible. He determined that the best way to explore the Bible was to live it, as literally as possible. For one year.
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Welcome to the Nerd Parade
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Become more grateful
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A comic tries a little of everything
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A. J. Jacobs has received some strange emails over the years, but this note was perhaps the strangest: "You don't know me, but I'm your eighth cousin. And we have over 80,000 relatives of yours in our database." That's enough family members to fill Madison Square Garden four times over. Who are these people, A. J. wondered, and how do I find them? So began Jacobs' three-year adventure to help build the biggest family tree in history.
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ok book
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Know It All, Volume 1
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Entertaining but hard to listen to.
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It gets better, and better, and better, and better
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Critic reviews
"One of the book's strongest parts is its laugh-out-loud humor." (Publishers Weekly)
"Sidesplitting." (Time Out New York)
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The Memoir Project
- A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text For Writing & Life
- By: Marion Roach Smith
- Narrated by: Marion Roach Smith
- Length: 3 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Whether or not one has lived an exceptional or dramatic life, we inherently understand that writing memoir—whether it’s a book, blog, or just a letter to a child - is the single greatest portal to self-examination. Stop treading water in writing exercises or hiding behind “writer’s block” and learn how to write with intent. Marion Roach Smith’s disarmingly frank but wildly fun tactics offer you simple and effective guidelines that work. Your legacy beings now.
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amazing what you can learn from brevity
- By Schwartz-Burrill on 09-15-11
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Laughing Without an Accent
- Adventures of an Iranian American, at Home and Abroad
- By: Firoozeh Dumas
- Narrated by: Firoozeh Dumas
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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In the best-selling memoir Funny in Farsi, Firoozeh Dumas recounted her adventures growing up Iranian American in Southern California. Now she again mines her rich Persian heritage in Laughing Without an Accent, sharing stories both tender and humorous on being a citizen of the world, on her well-meaning family, and on amusing cultural conundrums, all told with insights into the universality of the human condition. (Hint: It may have to do with brushing and flossing daily.)
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Sigh
- By Sara on 01-29-14
By: Firoozeh Dumas
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Dear Fahrenheit 451
- Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks
- By: Annie Spence
- Narrated by: Stephanie Spicer
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Librarians spend their lives weeding - not weeds, but books - books that have reached the end of their shelf life both literally and figuratively. They remove books that patrons no longer check out, and they put back books they treasure. Annie Spence, who has a decade of experience as a Midwestern librarian, does this not only at her Michigan library but also at home, for her neighbors, at cocktail parties - everywhere. In Dear Fahrenheit 451, she addresses those books directly.
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Totally captivating
- By Grace Smith on 03-24-18
By: Annie Spence
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Baltimore Blues
- Tess Monaghan, Book 1
- By: Laura Lippman
- Narrated by: Deborah Hazlett
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Unemployed at 29, Tess Monaghan is willing to take any freelance job to pay the rent—including a bit of unorthodox snooping for her rowing buddy, Darryl "Rock" Paxton. In a city where someone is murdered almost every day, attorney Michael Abramowitz's death should be just another statistic. But the slain lawyer's notoriety—and his noontime trysts with Rock's fiancée—make the case front page news...and point to Rock as the likely murderer. But trying to prove her friend's innocence could prove costly to Tess.
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I'm on #8 - This series is almost unique
- By connie on 02-19-12
By: Laura Lippman
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The Possessed
- Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them
- By: Elif Batuman
- Narrated by: Elif Batuman
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Possessed we watch Elif Batuman investigate a possible murder at Tolstoy's ancestral estate. We go with her to Stanford, Switzerland, and St. Petersburg; retrace Pushkin's wanderings in the Caucasus; learn why Old Uzbek has 100 different words for crying; and see an 18th-century ice palace reconstructed on the Neva. Love and the novel, the individual in history, the existential plight of the graduate student: all find their places in The Possessed.
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Dear Russian Literary Diary...
- By Darwin8u on 08-29-17
By: Elif Batuman
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The Mathematician's Shiva
- By: Stuart Rojstaczer
- Narrated by: Angela Brazil, Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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When the greatest female mathematician in history passes away, her son, Alexander "Sasha" Karnokovitch, just wants to mourn his mother in peace. But rumor has it the notoriously eccentric Polish émigré has solved one of the most difficult problems in all of mathematics and has spitefully taken the solution to her grave. A ragtag group of mathematicians from around the world descends upon Rachela's shiva, determined to find the proof or solve it for themselves - even if it means prying up the floorboards for notes.
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Great read
- By Lee Crowe on 07-27-15
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If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother
- By: Julia Sweeney
- Narrated by: Julia Sweeney
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Since her time on Saturday Night Live, where she created the infamous androgynous character "Pat", Julia Sweeney has gone on to establish herself as a witty, captivating performer of one-woman shows, like God Said Ha!, In the Family Way, and Letting Go of God. She gave a TED talk sharing how she explained the birds and the bees to her eight-year-old daughter, Mulan, which ignited an incredible response. Now, when it comes to talking about motherhood, people want to hear what Julia has to say.
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I Love Julia Sweeney
- By Lisa on 04-05-13
By: Julia Sweeney
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Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer is Much Faster)
- Life Lessons from Dave Barry
- By: Dave Barry
- Narrated by: Dave Barry
- Length: 3 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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An uproariously funny examination of what one generation can teach to another - or not - from the Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times - best-selling author of You Can Date Boys When You're Forty and Insane City. During the course of living (mumble, mumble) years, Dave Barry has gained much wisdom* (*actual wisdom not guaranteed), and he is eager to pass it on - to the next generation, the generation after that, and those idiots who make driving to the grocery store in Florida a death-defying experience.
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Clever!
- By Sharlotte on 01-31-17
By: Dave Barry
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The Night Ocean
- By: Paul La Farge
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Marina Willett, MD, has a problem. Her husband, Charlie, has become obsessed with H. P. Lovecraft, in particular with one episode in the legendary horror writer's life: In the summer of 1934, the "old gent" lived for two months with a gay teenage fan named Robert Barlow, at Barlow's family home in central Florida. What were the two of them up to? Were they friends - or something more? Just when Charlie thinks he's solved the puzzle, a new scandal erupts, and he disappears.
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Frustratingly Uneven Due to Clumsy Plot Structure
- By Adam on 06-15-17
By: Paul La Farge
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I Can't Complain
- (All Too) Personal Essays
- By: Elinor Lipman
- Narrated by: Elinor Lipman
- Length: 3 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Elinor Lipman has populated her fictional universe with characters so utterly real that we feel like they're old friends. Now she shares an even more intimate world with us - her own - in essays that offer a candid, charming take on modern life. Looking back and forging ahead, she considers the subjects that matter most: childhood and condiments, long marriage and solo living, career and politics. Here you'll find the lighthearted: a celebration of four decades of All My Children, a reflection on being Jewish in heavily Irish-Catholic Lowell on St. Patrick's Day, a hilariously unflinching account of her tiptoe into online dating.
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Fabulous!
- By Louise on 09-15-19
By: Elinor Lipman
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Where the Past Begins
- A Writer's Memoir
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Amy Tan
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Moving from her childhood in Oakland and growing up with her Chinese parents through her success as a novelist, Amy Tan delves into her creative interests in music, the paralysis of beginning a new project, journal writing, and travelling. Where the Past Begins chronicles the making of a writer. With characteristic humor and poignant observation, Tan weaves a nontraditional introspective narrative that is as complex and vibrant as this beloved American novelist's fiction.
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Narration Issues
- By Sara on 12-14-17
By: Amy Tan
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A comic tries a little of everything
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Entertaining but hard to listen to.
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What listeners say about The Know-It-All
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Lea
- 06-17-10
A really fun listen
We bought this book to listen to on our move across the country, and at first I wasn't interested, but as the story progressed I began to really enjoy it. The personal notes that were included we a very pleasant touch to the book. I thought it was going to be about the encyclopedia more, but turned out to be pleasantly surprised. I found myself sympathizing with the author's duel quests in the book and enjoyed it thoroughly.
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- Nicholas gainsbrugh
- 04-24-24
Puffy and pretentious in almost all aspects - typical Jacobs
Little by little I began to not appreciate Jacobs - by the end he seemed weak and “ schmarmy “ I do not know if I’ll give his writing a second chance!
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Overall
- Dan
- 11-21-04
Enjoyable through all the letters
Loved following Jacobs and his neuroses on his long journey from A to Z. As enjoyable as other NPR alums like David Sedaris and Jonathan Goldstein. Cantor did an engaging reading. If only Audible would offer an encyclopedia...
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3 people found this helpful
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- Keith
- 01-02-20
A must read(listen) for any aspiring know it all
This book is great for random trivia, though it's autobiographical look at a year in Jacob's life through the lens of the Encyclopedia Britannica is the true journey.
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Overall
- Terry
- 12-03-04
An enjoyable, light-hearted listen
Within the first minutes of The Know-It-All, I was laughing out loud, and probably looking like an idiot to the drivers of the cars around me. AJ Jacobs' quest for knowledge may be contrived for the purposes of writing a book, but so what? Bill Bryson's journeys are undertaken with the same goal in mind, after all.
In fact, a Bryson travel book is the closest comparison I can think of to The Know-It-All, and that's high praise. Expecting to get a condensed version of the encyclopaedia is ridiculous - this book is about READING the encyclopaedia, not just abridging the interesting facts. Yes, of course he's somewhat self-obsessed - but that's kind of the point: he's writing a book about a personal endeavour, and he's populating it with anecdotes about himself and characters in his life. Personally, I enjoyed the descriptions of his relationships with his father and his brother-in-law, and I thought the tone of his humour was perfectly pitched.
The Know-It-All isn't meant to be taken seriously, so people who are expecting it to distill all of human knowledge into a handy bite-sized chunk are going to be disappointed. Me? I thought it's the best Audible book I've listened to in a long time.
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10 people found this helpful
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- Daniel
- 02-06-18
My love of learning is given a massive boost
Loved it, even the bizarre and disgusting, and maybe someday it'll be me. Or it'll be Charles Dickens. Either way...
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Overall
- Steve James
- 02-04-06
What were they thinking?
I'm beginning to wonder about the usefulness of some of these reviews, particularly the negative ones. They almost prevented me from listening to Blink by Malcom Gladwell which I LOVED and might have prevailed against me for this one had I paid any attention. They are in such stark contrast to my experience.
I find this book a very enjoyable read and as people have said, it's as much about the author as the book he is reading. I have truly enjoyed the narrator Geoffrey Cantor portrayal of the book. He seems more like an actor reading a script than a narrator reading a book.
The book is long however, but I think I'll be able to stop it for awhile and come back to it fairly easily. I strongly recommend it.
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21 people found this helpful
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- Brandon
- 07-11-15
It's a Journey, not a list of Facts
Jacobs takes us along on his journey through the alphabet, but it's not just a highlight real of the best facts in the Britannica. It's also about his experience. How the towering stack of completed books begins to grow, how he is able to apply his new knowledge, and the weird overlaps the articles have in his everyday life. Jacobs is funny, lovably neurotic, and much harder to put down than an actual encyclopedia..
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- gita
- 07-22-12
Brilliant & Funny, what a great book!!
What did you love best about The Know-It-All?
The wonderful mix of learning & humor, the author is fantastic, and the man reading the book is the Best! He is one with the words, my favorite book of the decade.
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Know-It-All?
When I finished, I had to start lisening to it again, so much I wanted to remember.
Which character – as performed by Geoffrey Cantor – was your favorite?
He did them all OUTSTANDING.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
MANY EXTREME LAUGH OUT LOUD TIMES, AND MANY WOW MOMENTS.
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Overall
- James
- 10-22-04
Fun, and even informative
This is an ideal audio book...perfect for short trips, and enjoyable for the whole family. It may not replace reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica for yourself (and who really wants to?), but the variety and humorous commentary is well worth the price of admission.
Try it, you'll like it.
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26 people found this helpful