The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World, by A.J. Jacobs.

Not as good as The Year of Living Biblically,but interesting nonetheless. Mr. Jacobs takes a whole year to read The Encyclopaedia Britannica from "a-ak" to "zywiec". He got the idea from his father, who tried once to read the encyclopedia but only got mid-way through the "B"s. By the way, Jacobs senior is a securities lawyer who, the author claims, holds the world's record for most footnotes in a legal article - 4,824.