Thursday, May 6, 2010

A Chain of Books

First I read this book:

It's hilarious. AJ Jacobs is a great writer, and his quest to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica is funny and filled with lots of useless and semi-useless information, which I enjoy. So then I read:


In that one, AJ turns himself into a human guinea pig and tries various philosophies and lifestyles for a month at a time. I enjoyed his month of radical honesty, and the month where he outsources as much of his life as possible to three assistants in India. They read books to his child, argued with his wife on his behalf, and dealt with his boss, all from Bangalore. So then I read this:

That one's funny, too, and taught me more, and more interesting things, than I ever thought there were in the bible. During his quest to live biblically, he realizes he needs a slave. The closest he can get? An intern from Brown. It's only a tiny part of the book, but it turns out that after the intern went on a research trip with Jacobs, he was inspired to take a leave of absence from Brown and enroll at Liberty University. In case you're not familiar with Liberty, it's Jerry Fallwell's school.

Wow, what a great book. The people at Liberty are like total foreigners to me, and reading about them was like reading about aliens. They turn out to be more interesting, and more varied, than you might think. The author jumps right in and tries to live the Liberty lifestyle 100%. And in the process, he learns a lot about then, and a lot about himself.

All four books: highly recommended.

3 comments:

Mommy said...

May I borrow some, or all, please!

julie g. said...

They were all library books, so I can't lend 'em.

Babi said...

I am so glad you read the Know it all! If I had known, we would have talked about it in Bolinas, I am currently reading the year of living by the Bible one...
Have fun in Bo!