know like a book

1. Also, know like the back of one's hand or know backwards and forwards. Be extremely familiar with or knowledgeable about; understand perfectly. For example, I know Greg like a book—I'm sure he'll come, or I know this town like the back of my hand, or John knew his part backwards and forwards. The first of these hyperbolic idioms, dating from the early 1800s, has a close cousin in read like a book, which means “to discern someone's intent,” as in I can read Greg like a book; also see under open book. The second (back of hand) dates only from the mid-1900s. Also see backwards and forwards, def. 2; inside out, def. 2; know all the answers.

Example Sentences

It attaches to the device magnetically, which is cool, but it inexplicably flips over the top, not from right to left — you know, like a book does.

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American women may talk too much, but at any rate they are the sort American men know like a book, and our knights have no use for inanimate beauties a good many years younger than my Lady Victoria.

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But when one's on ground that you know like a book an' was brought up on,—when it's in the daylight, right by a pasture you've been acrost always an' where you've walked the ties,—well, I s'pose it's the same feelin' as when a man you know cuts up a state's prison caper; seem's like he can't of, because you knew him.

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It must seem extraordinarily odd to walk about among things you are supposed to know like a book, and to be, in fact, a perfect stranger.

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