Know it All by AJ Jacobs - Book Review

Well I finished The Know It All today. And I will say that I really enjoyed it. There were a couple of errors in it. One where AJ says that Lumber is British for Old Furniture. It's not. Lumber is British for the logs, right after the tree has been cut down. Furniture is still furniture.

I enjoyed reading about AJ's time at the Crossword Tournament, and the time he was on the TV game show - Who wants to be a Millionaire with Meredith from the View. I learnt a lot from AJ, without reading the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Here's AJ's website, in which he mentions some other books he is writing.

The Know-It-All - Interesting Facts from the Encyclopedia Britannica

Having finished Among the Gently Mad, I am now reading The Know-It-All. He's reading all 30 plus volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

I'm thinking AJ's book editor missed a factual error. It is the editors job to prove every fact as being correct, right? Anyway, under B for Bell on page 24, AJ writes, The worlds largest bell was built in 1733 in Moscow, and weighed in at more than four hundred thousand pounds.

Even I know that bells are not built - they are CAST!!! I think I might have learned that from one of my favourite movies. National Treasure starring Nicolas Cage and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. Or I may have learned that many years ago when I was forced to learn about the American Revolution in my very boring high school history class.

Under B for Book on Page 26, AJ writes The United Nations defines a book as a text that is at least 49 pages long. If that is true - then what does one call all the childrens texts sitting on the shelves in my sons room? The vast majority of them are less than 49 pages. If they are not books - then what are they? I need to start training my 5 year old to call them by another name. Because the UN says they are not books anymore.