THE KNOW-IT-ALL

The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World, by A.J. Jacobs: A man who read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica and wrote a memoir about it. Reading the encyclopedia is totally something I’d resolve to do (but then fail), so I could sympathize with his quest. Now I don’t have to do it because this book summarized the experience and let me pick up all the good trivia. I liked that it was even organized in alphabetical order, but the encyclopedia material is interwoven with scenes from his life while he’s reading it, and various adventures and investigations into the nature of intelligence. Very addictive and neatly done.

DEVIL IN THE DETAILS

Devil in the Details: Scenes From an Obsessive Girlhood, by Jennifer Traig: A hilarious and fascinating OCD memoir. Traig kind of reminds me of a female, Jewish, more mentally ill David Sedaris. Of the various mental illnesses, I’ve always felt closest to OCD—I know I don’t actually have it, of course, but I understand the sensation. I am, of course, semi-obsessive about lists and organization and planning, and I often have worrywart compulsions, like checking my purse every five minutes to make sure my wallet’s still there (even if the purse has just been sitting quietly on my lap, zipped, with no way for the wallet to fall out), or running back into the house before I leave to make sure the oven’s not on (even if I haven’t used the oven that day). I also used to do this complex OCD-like counting ritual when I was younger, which involved counting things (tiles, stripes in the wallpaper, etc.) to the rhythm of whatever song happened to be in my head, and repeating it over and over until the end of the rhythm matched the end of the row of tiles or stripes or what have you. These aren’t full-blown compulsions, because I can resist doing them if I really want to, but this is why the book interested me so deeply. Standing just at the edge of that behavior, I’m curious what it would be like if I fell over the precipice. Reading the book did make me feel a little crazy, especially because I was reading it while getting ready for my trip, which by necessity involves a certain level of obsessive organization—gifts packed? Windows locked? Spare key out for petsitter? Add to this a certain amount of guilt about leaving the pets alone with only half-hour visits by a relative stranger, and suddenly I found myself unplugging the paper shredder on the wastebasket in case one of the cats accidentally fell into it and began shredding himself. My anxieties were running amuck, but at least, thanks to Traig, I could laugh about it. I really recommend this book.