View source for Amos Urban Shirk

'''Amos Urban Shirk''' (1890? &ndash; October 20, 1956) was an [[United States|American]] businessman, author and [[bibliophilia|reader]] of [[encyclopedia]]s.

As a businessman he worked in the food industry. He wrote ''Marketing Through Food Brokers'', published in 1939 by [[McGraw-Hill]]. He invented a synthetic [[chicle]] and introduced [[vitamin]] capsules to grocery stores.

He was also renowned as a prodigious reader. Shirk read the entire 23-volume [[1911 Encyclopædia Britannica|1911 ''Encyclopædia Britannica'']] from cover to cover in four and a half years, reading on average 3 hours per night, and taking two to six months per volume. As of 1938 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".

Shirk did not limit himself to ''Britannica''. He also read [[Henry Smith Williams]]'s 24-volume ''[[Historians' History of the World]]'', which took him two years. Among his other feats of prodigious reading were an eighteen-volume set of [[Alexandre Dumas, père|Dumas]] (read twice), a thirty-two-volume set of [[Honoré de Balzac|Balzac]] (twice), and a twenty-volume set of [[Charles Dickens]] (three times).

Shirk had other hobbies including [[painting]] and [[record collecting]].

==See also==
* ''[[The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World]]''

==References==
* "Reader", ''[[The New Yorker]]'', March 3, 1938. pg.17

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shirk, Amos Urban}}
[[Category:Encyclopædia Britannica]]
[[Category:1890s births]]
[[Category:1956 deaths]]
[[Category:American book and manuscript collectors]]
[[Category:Encyclopedists]]
[[Category:American businesspeople]]

[[pt:Amos Urban Shirk]]
[[Category:2Fix]]