wrote the book on

Idioms  

1. Knows nearly everything about, as in Ask Dr. Lock; he wrote the book on pediatric cardiology, or I wrote the book on job-hunting; I've been looking for two years. This expression is always put in the past tense. [Colloquial; second half of 1900s]

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Example Sentences

Sam Donaldson, the ABC reporter who practically wrote the book on covering presidents, feels much the same way.

From Salon

"He literally wrote the book on the art of deal making."

From BBC

And while VP choices aren’t generally thought to have large effects on election outcomes, the professors who literally wrote the book on whether running mates matter—it was called Do Running Mates Matter?—once included the following caveat in a summary of their research:

From Slate

“If you’re doing everything at 7,000 feet, you have to go at a slower pace just because you’re at altitude,” said Baxter, who literally wrote the book on running in Flagstaff with “Running Up the Mountain: Northern Arizona Altitude, Lumberjack Attitude and the Building of a Distance Dynasty,” a detailed, quirky and entertaining look at people who made the sport flower in the desert.

From Los Angeles Times

Definitions and explanations vary, of course; Danny Peary, who literally wrote the book on the subject, defined them as “special films which for one reason or another have been taken to heart by segments of the movie audience, cherished, protected, and most of all, enthusiastically championed.”

From New York Times