The Year of Living Biblically

Description

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... 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.

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.

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 * PJ O'Rourke * 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. * Sunday Telegraph * Engaging . . . comical . . . full of curious lore * Independent on Sunday * Witty and entertaining * Daily Mail * At the end of this entertaining (for the reader) spiritual journey Jacobs may not be a religious man but he is a better person * Sunday Telegraph *