Amos Urban Shirk
Amos Urban Shirk (c. 1890 – October 20, 1956) was an American businessman, author and reader of encyclopedias.
As a businessman he worked in the food industry. He wrote Marketing Through Food Brokers, published in 1939 by
He was also renowned as a prodigious reader. Shirk read the entire 23-volume
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica from cover to cover in four and a half years, reading on average three hours per evening, and taking two to six months per volume.[2] As of 1934, he had begun reading the 14th edition, saying he found it a "big improvement" over the 11th, and saying that "most of the material had been completely rewritten".[2]
Shirk did not limit himself to Britannica. He also read
Historians' History of the World, which took him two years, as well as an 18-volume set of works by Alexandre Dumas, a 32-volume set of Honoré de Balzac, and a 20-volume set of Charles Dickens.[2]
Shirk had other hobbies including painting and record collecting.[3]
See also
- The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World
References
- ^ "A. URBAN SHIRK, SALES SPECIALIST; Merchandising Authority in Food Industry Dies at 66—Invented Synthetic Chicle". The New York Times. October 22, 1956. Retrieved May 8, 2017.
- ^ a b c "Reader". The New Yorker. March 3, 1934. p. 17.
- Newspapers.com.
