For his first book, AJ Jacobs read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. For his second, he followed every single rule in the Bible. Now comes a collection of his most outrageous, hilarious and thought-provoking experiments yet. In My Experimental Life Jacobs puts himself to a series of bizarre and ridiculous tests, from total obedience to his long-suffering wife and 'Radical Honesty', to living as a beautiful woman and outsourcing his personal life to India (whether sending an email, having a weekly chat with his parents or arguing with his wife). Written by an author who has been compared in the British press to Woody Allen and Bill Bryson, The Guinea Pig Diaries will be one of the funniest, most entertaining and most illuminating books of the year.
One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
388pages
14 heures de lecture
Avoiding shellfish was easy. The stoning of adulterers proved a little more difficult - and potentially controversial. Was it enough to walk up to an adulterer and gently touch them with a stone? Even that could be grounds for accusations of assault, especially with female adulterers in Manhattan. So what's a good Bible-reading boy to do?Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the hundreds of less-publicised rules. The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal, and will make you see history's most influential book with new eyes.
One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World
388pages
14 heures de lecture
33,000 Pages44 Million Words10 Billion Years Of History1 Obsessed ManPart memoir and part education (or lack thereof), "The Know-It-All" chronicles NPR contributor A.J. Jacobs's hilarious, enlightening, and seemingly impossible quest to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z. To fill the ever-widening gaps in his Ivy League education, A.J. Jacobs sets for himself the daunting task of reading all thirty-two volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His wife, Julie, tells him it's a waste of time, his friends believe he is losing his mind, and his father, a brilliant attorney who had once attempted the same feat and quit somewhere around Borneo, is encouraging but unconvinced. With self-deprecating wit and a disarming frankness, "The Know-It-All" recounts the unexpected and comically disruptive effects Operation Encyclopedia has on every part of Jacobs's life - from his newly minted marriage to his complicated relationship with his father and the rest of his charmingly eccentric New York family to his day job as an editor at "Esquire." Jacobs's project tests the outer limits of his stamina and forces him to explore the real meaning of intelligence as he endeavours to join Mensa, win a spot on Jeopardy!, and absorb 33,000 pages of learning. On his journey, he stumbles upon some of the strangest, funniest, and most profound facts about every topic under the sun, all while battling fatigue, ridicule, and the paralysing fear that attends his first real-life responsibility - the impending birth of his first child. "The Know-It-All" is an ingenious, mightily entertaining memoir of one man's intellect, neuroses, and obsessions, and a struggle between the all-consuming quest for factual knowledge and the undeniable gift of hard-won wisdom.