My Experimental Life

A hilarious new collection from the bestselling author of The Know-It-All and The Year of Living Biblically, AJ Jacobs.

A. J. Jacobs is the editor at large at Esquire. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Know-It-All. He has contributed to the New York Times, New York magazine, and NPR's Weekend Edition, among others. He lives in New York. See ajjacobs.com for more information.

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.

The Year of Living Biblically

In the hysterical follow-up to The Know-It-All, A J Jacobs tells the story of the year in which he attempted to follow every precept in the Bible, even where they contradicted each other...

A.J. Jacobs has written a - how else to put it? - Good Book. Let me take my review from the original, Psalm 2, verse 4: 'He that sittith in the heavens shall laugh.' And let me suggest that readers, whether they know their bible or not, get to know A.J. Jacobs. But not in a biblical sense, please

Jacobs has two great strengths as a writer. One is his extreme open-mindedness...the other is his humour, which he uses with precision and some subtelety.

Engaging . . . comical . . . full of curious lore

At the end of this entertaining (for the reader) spiritual journey Jacobs may not be a religious man but he is a better person

Even if Jacobs couldn't write for toffee, his account was almost bound to be gripping and hilarious.  Luckily, it's both

As a man incapable of developing any facial hair aside from a really amazingly cruddy moustache, I would have bought this book for the astonishing big beard chronicle alone. That The Year of Living Biblically grows, beardlike, into a long, hilarious, tangled, and ultimately moving story of spiritual growth is all the more astonishing. But why should I continue to be surprised at what springs from A. J.'s head? He is a brilliantly hilarious writer who truly lives up to that oft-misused adverb/adjective combination and then some. Plus: He is going to Heaven. So how can you not afford to tithe your salary to his cause and buy this book?

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 head first and attempt to obey the hundreds of less-publicized 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

The Know-It-All

A. J. Jacobs tells the story of his bizarre, hilarious and seemingly impossible quest to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z.

A. J. Jacobs is the editor of What It Feels Like and the author of The Two Kings: Jesus and Elvis, America Offline, and Fractured Fairy Tales. He is a senior editor of Esquire and lives in New York City with his wife Julie.

On leaving school or university, you feel pretty pleased with yourself. You've learnt a lot, your'e well-read and you know a whole bunch of obscure facts guaranteed at some point to appear in the questions on Mastermind or University Challenge. Then you get a job, and ten years later youre more eloquent and eager to argue about Britney and Big Brother than Beckett and the Brontes. Sound familiar? 
 
Well it happened to AJ Jacobs too. As an editor at Esquire, Jacobs had built up a rather impressive knowledge of celebrity trivia - and the cure was going to take a long time. While others might take to reading a broadsheet at the weekend, Jacobs chose to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica. All 33,000 pages of it. 
 
Bill Bryson meets Schott's Original Miscellany meets Woody Allen. Part assemblage of fascinating trivia, part journey through adulthood, all laugh-out-loud funny.

A J Jacobs

Packed with fascinating information and studies from experts, the book is a highly entertaining and sharply written personal odyssey ... The perfect book to slip in the suitcase before exposing that shameful midriff on the beach.

A.J. Jacobs is very, very bad for your health. He will keep you up reading til 2 a.m., disturbing your circadian rhythms, making you sleep through breakfast and overeat at lunch. He is delicious. He's habit-forming. He will give you infectious titters and terminal glee. Don't let that stop you. Indulge.

Mary Roach, author of 'Bonk' and 'Packing for Mars'

Who wouldn't want to be fitter, happier, more productive? In this riotous, madcap book, AJ Jacobs sets himself an ambitious goal: to become the person we all wish we could be. It's vintage AJ. Do your future self a favour and buy this book.

Joshua Foer, author of 'Moonwalking with Einstein'

I couldn't wait to get my hands on this book, and once again, the brilliant A.J. Jacobs had me laughing out loud - and also deciding to change the way I live. Drop Dead Healthy is a rare mixture of the hilarious, the absurd, and the scientifically sound. Who knew it could be so entertaining to read about broccoli puree and shoeless jogging?

Gretchen Rubin, author of 'The Happiness Project'

His quirky tone makes it undeniably hilarious … Amongst the laughter you’ll find genuine fitness and nutrition tips from someone who is willing to try anything, no matter how embarrassing it might be.

Can one man go from a "python that ate a goat" physique to perfect specimen? From Roman soldier workouts to Areca palm plants, from the sublime to the absurd, AJ has tried it all. I laughed my ass off the whole way and learned a ton ... including about my ass.

Timothy Ferriss, author of 'The 4-hour Work Week'

It’s not just a funny read, Jacobs filters the wise from the wacky so we’re left with some valuable health lessons…Drop Dead Healthy is both entertaining and useful.

One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection

After sharpening his mind in The Know-It-All and achieving spiritual enlightenment in The Year of Living Biblically, A.J. Jacobs had only one thing left to tackle in the self-improvement trinity: the body. But his mission wasn't just to lose a couple of pounds, but to turn his current self - 'a mushy, easily winded, moderately sickly blob' - into a paragon of health and vitality. 
 
Armed with a team of medical advisers and a 53-page task list, Jacobs set to work. He subjected his body to a brutal regime of exercise programmes - extreme chewing, anti-gravity yoga and shoeless jogging to name only a few; sampled every miracle diet going, beginning with the 'coffee, booze and chocolate' plan through the 'Rastafarian diet' to raw foodism; as well as sharpening his eyes and mind, testing every known method, and the patience of his long-suffering wife, in his quest to become as healthy as humanly possible. 
 
Drop Dead Healthy is a hilarious account of one man's painful journey from slob to superman, and a fascinating and eye-opening examination of what it really means to be healthy. Revealing the ugly truth about the assumptions and obsessions we have about our bodies, this might just be the healthiest book you'll ever read.

A J Jacobs

Praise for Drop Dead Healthy

Packed with fascinating information and studies from experts, the book is a highly entertaining and sharply written personal odyssey ... The perfect book to slip in the suitcase before exposing that shameful midriff ...

A.J. Jacobs is very, very bad for your health. He will keep you up reading til 2 a.m., disturbing your circadian rhythms, making you sleep through breakfast and overeat at lunch. He is delicious. He's ...

Who wouldn't want to be fitter, happier, more productive? In this riotous, madcap book, AJ Jacobs sets himself an ambitious goal: to become the person we all wish we could be. It's vintage AJ. Do your future self ...

Packed with fascinating information and studies from experts, the book is a highly entertaining and sharply written personal odyssey ... The perfect book to slip in the suitcase before exposing that shameful midriff ...

A.J. Jacobs is very, very bad for your health. He will keep you up reading til 2 a.m., disturbing your circadian rhythms, making you sleep through breakfast and overeat at lunch. He is delicious. He's ...

Who wouldn't want to be fitter, happier, more productive? In this riotous, madcap book, AJ Jacobs sets himself an ambitious goal: to become the person we all wish we could be. It's vintage AJ. Do your future self ...

Packed with fascinating information and studies from experts, the book is a highly entertaining and sharply written personal odyssey ... The perfect book to slip in the suitcase before exposing that shameful midriff ...

A.J. Jacobs is very, very bad for your health. He will keep you up reading til 2 a.m., disturbing your circadian rhythms, making you sleep through breakfast and overeat at lunch. He is delicious. He's ...

Who wouldn't want to be fitter, happier, more productive? In this riotous, madcap book, AJ Jacobs sets himself an ambitious goal: to become the person we all wish we could be. It's vintage AJ. Do your future self ...

Books by A J Jacobs

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