people tend to forget that the very process of knowing is as important as the thing known. no one can be a know it all aiming for a collection of "the most important things to know". You are a know it all by being curious, attentive, willing to study and learn. It's the form, the process, the way of living. The separation between form and content has reached an all time high
How to really be a "know-it-all": be curios, ask questions about the information you come across in your life, especially if you come across it multiple times in your daily life.<p>Having an idea about the birth of the universe, dinosaurs, etc is not bad to have and you certainly can spend your time in worse ways than reading pop science books. But most of the time you will take almost nothing from these books as the information does not come as an answer to a question that bugged you, so you value it close to worthless. Water tastes the sweetest when you are thirsty and so on.
My high school librarian has been very interested in the series; around 10% of the library budget has been spent on solely on buying books in this series. We currently have collected around 370 of them[0].<p>Most of my time in the library was spent reading sci-fi and world history. Of the few encounter with these books, I've found them as a great initial boost. Apart from their own content, the references and further reading sections serve as a fantastic reading list. All _without_ the need of a knowledgeable expert by your side. As I'm applying to computer science, the introductions to classical philosophy and economics were really helpful as I did not take relevant courses.<p>I wouldn't bother reading a random one of them out of boredom though. Many of the topics may not be relevant to what you already know, and would be quickly flushed away and not survive a single week in your brain unless you do further reading.<p>p.s. as of this comment I have a cart full of newly arrived Short Introduction books behind me, about 130+ in count.<p>[0]: I am a long time volunteer at the school library, so statistics are available.
It’s fun to learn facts, especially when presented well, indeed, but this article feels like it is really just an ad for the <i>Very Short Introduction</i> series, a project of Oxford University Press.
Poor choice of title: the article doesn't fulfill the promise. It's hard to discuss this article because of this large discrepancy.<p>Does anyone even want to be a know-it-all? While I'd like to be knowledgeable in more topics I know that if I read/study topics that I'm not thoroughly interested in I won't retain the information. So I'm content knowing what I know.
Related:<p><i>How to Be a Know-It-All</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15439701" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15439701</a> - Oct 2017 (48 comments)