Library Book
On the way home from work I stopped by the library to pick up a book I ordered last week, The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the World's Smartest Person in the World, by A. J. Jacobs. It's about the author's quest to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica.
First, I feel compelled to say that if you're not taking advantage of the fact that you get to use your library membership to order books online and have them dropped off at your local branch, do it! Start doing it right away. I contend that this is the second most crucial use of my tax dollars, after paying firemen.
A blurb by P. J. O'Rourke, found on the back of the book:
"The Know-It-All is a terrific book. It's a lot shorter than the encyclopedia, and funnier, and you'll remember more of it. Plus, if it falls off the shelf onto your head, you'll live."
[Hours later, about fifty-nine minutes of which I spent replying to my grandmother's email, the rest, I'm not quite sure -- it's the Internet I'm on here, after all.] Here's a short excerpt from the book that says so much about Russia:
"The world's largest bell was built in 1733 in Moscow, and weighed in at more than four hundred thousand pounds. It never rang -- it was broken by fire before it could ever be struck. What a sad little story. All that work, all that planning, all those expectations -- then nothing. Now it just sits there in Russia, a big metallic symbol of failure."
First, I feel compelled to say that if you're not taking advantage of the fact that you get to use your library membership to order books online and have them dropped off at your local branch, do it! Start doing it right away. I contend that this is the second most crucial use of my tax dollars, after paying firemen.
A blurb by P. J. O'Rourke, found on the back of the book:
"The Know-It-All is a terrific book. It's a lot shorter than the encyclopedia, and funnier, and you'll remember more of it. Plus, if it falls off the shelf onto your head, you'll live."
[Hours later, about fifty-nine minutes of which I spent replying to my grandmother's email, the rest, I'm not quite sure -- it's the Internet I'm on here, after all.] Here's a short excerpt from the book that says so much about Russia:
"The world's largest bell was built in 1733 in Moscow, and weighed in at more than four hundred thousand pounds. It never rang -- it was broken by fire before it could ever be struck. What a sad little story. All that work, all that planning, all those expectations -- then nothing. Now it just sits there in Russia, a big metallic symbol of failure."
Comments