The Lazy Intellectual: Maximum Knowledge, Minimum Effort (Adams Media), by Richard J. Wallace and James V. Wallace

For those of us who find the life of the mind tough going because the guidebooks are impenetrable, The LazyIntellectual is the ticket. A succinct overview of philosophy, math, music, literature, history, religion and sciences soft and hard, The Lazy Intellectual defines everything from dark matter to analytic philosophy in plain English. Of course, in any work this broad, there will be room for disagreement. It’s a long stretch to call the stories of “Arabian Nights” a novel. Errors of nuance occur and surely the assertion that the Mayans “had the only fully developed language in the pre-Columbian Americas” is a typo. But generally, The Lazy Intellectual is an easy way toward a 101-level education without the expense of tuition.