A. J. Jacobs

"The author of The Year of Living Biblically and The Know-It-All documents his effort to follow a complicated two-year program of dubious diet and exercise practices in a wayward effort to promote perfect health that tests the patience of his long-suffering wife. 150,000 first printing."

One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection

Drop Dead Healthy

The New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically goes on a journey to understand the enduring power of puzzles: why we love them, what they do to our brains, and how they can improve our world. What makes puzzles--jigsaw, mazes, riddles, sudoku--so satisfying? Be it the formation of new cerebral pathways, their close link to insight and humor, or their community-building properties, they're among the fundamental elements that make us human. Convinced that puzzles have taught him to think and made him a better person, A.J. Jacobs--the four-time New York Times bestselling author, master of immersion journalism, and nightly crossworder--set out to determine their myriad benefits. And maybe, in the process, solve the puzzle of our very existence. Not quite. But, in The Puzzler, he meets the most zealous devotees, enters (sometimes with his kids in tow) any puzzle competition that will have him, and unpacks the history and relevance of a huge variety of head-scratchers: from the all-time bestselling puzzle, the Rubik's Cube, to the hardest escape room in the world. Like any good puzzle, The Puzzler is an enveloping experience, chock-full of unforgettable adventures and original, completable examples from around the world--including new work by Greg Pliska, one of America's top puzzle-makers. Interspersed throughout are concrete lessons on how puzzles can improve readers' mental dexterity and crisis management abilities. Like a real-life, less intimidating Willy Wonka, Jacobs has even hidden a secret, super-challenging but solvable puzzle within his book, and he will award a $10,000 prize to the first reader to solve it. Whether you're one of the .0001% of Notpron champions or an occasional Monday crossworder, The Puzzler will open your eyes to the power of flexible thinking and concentration. You'll walk away with real problem-solving strategies and pathways towards becoming a better thinker and decision maker--for these are certainly puzzling times.

One Man's Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life

The Puzzler

The best-selling memoirist of The Know-It-All and The Year of Living Biblically describes his experiments with a variety of activities from going undercover as a woman and outsourcing to India to saying whatever is on his mind and embarking on public nudity.

My Life as an Experiment

The Guinea Pig Diaries

Traces the author's three-year investigation into what constitutes family, describing how, after receiving an e-mail from a stranger who claimed to be a distant cousin, he embarked on an effort to build the biggest family tree in history.

Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree

It's All Relative

The idea was deceptively simple: New York Times bestselling author A.J. Jacobs decided to thank every single person involved in producing his morning cup of coffee. The resulting journey takes him across the globe, transforms his life, and reveals secrets about how gratitude can make us all happier, more generous, and more connected. Author A.J. Jacobs discovers that his coffee—and every other item in our lives—would not be possible without hundreds of people we usually take for granted: farmers, chemists, artists, presidents, truckers, mechanics, biologists, miners, smugglers, and goatherds. By thanking these people face to face, Jacobs finds some much-needed brightness in his life. Gratitude does not come naturally to Jacobs—his disposition is more Larry David than Tom Hanks—but he sets off on the journey on a dare from his son. And by the end, it’s clear to him that scientific research on gratitude is true. Gratitude’s benefits are legion: It improves compassion, heals your body, and helps battle depression. Jacobs gleans wisdom from vivid characters all over the globe, including the Minnesota miners who extract the iron that makes the steel used in coffee roasters, to the Madison Avenue marketers who captured his wandering attention for a moment, to the farmers in Colombia. Along the way, Jacobs provides wonderful insights and useful tips, from how to focus on the hundreds of things that go right every day instead of the few that go wrong. And how our culture overemphasizes the individual over the team. And how to practice the art of “savoring meditation” and fall asleep at night. Thanks a Thousand is a reminder of the amazing interconnectedness of our world. It shows us how much we take for granted. It teaches us how gratitude can make our lives happier, kinder, and more impactful. And it will inspire us to follow our own “Gratitude Trails.”

A Gratitude Journey

Thanks A Thousand

Abigail Pogrebin

The author describes her research on the holidays of the Jewish calendar and how she came to understand how these celebrations have lasted for thousands of years.

18 Holidays, One Wondering Jew

My Jewish Year

A collection of A.J. Jacobs’s hilarious adventures as a human guinea pig, including “My Outsourced Life,” “The Truth About Nakedness,” and a never-before-published essay. One man. Ten extraordinary quests. Bestselling author and human guinea pig A.J. Jacobs puts his life to the test and reports on the surprising and entertaining results. He goes undercover as a woman, lives by George Washington’s moral code, and impersonates a movie star. He practices "radical honesty," brushes his teeth with the world’s most rational toothpaste, and outsources every part of his life to India—including reading bedtime stories to his kids. And in a new adventure, Jacobs undergoes scientific testing to determine how he can put his wife through these and other life-altering experiments—one of which involves public nudity. Filled with humor and wisdom, My Life as an Experiment will immerse you in eye-opening situations and change the way you think about the big issues of our time—from love and work to national politics and breakfast cereal.

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.

One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World

The Know-it-all

von einem, der auszog das Buch der Bücher wörtlich zu nehmen

Die Bibel & ich

von einem, der auszog, der klügste Mensch der Welt zu werden

Britannica & ich

White Jacobs

Armed with Elvis biographies and a King James Bible, an investigative journalist compares the King of Rock and Roll to the King of Kings, in a humorous exploration of Elvis' claim that he was the Messiah

The Two Kings

podróż wdzięczności

Stokrotne dzięki!

despre modesta mea încercare de a urma regulile din Biblie cât mai literal cu putinţă

Anul în care am trăit după Biblie

"Вы когда-нибудь задумывались, что означает буквально следовать Библии -- каждому слову, абсолютно в точности, не отходя ни на йоту? А может ли современный человек в принципе соблюдать все ее правила? Большой любитель экспериментов над собой Эй Джей Джейкобс попытался сделать именно это: в течение года он жил, стремясь как можно более тщательно следовать всем правилам и руководствам, которые смог найти в Библии -- их оказалось более 700. В результате получилась книга "Год, прожитый по-библейски"--и мемуары, и рассказ о познании и воспитании, и настоящее, глубоко прочувствованное духовное путешествие, которое способно заставить иначе взглянуть на самую влиятельную книгу в истории человечества, и просто хорошая книга, завораживающая от первой до последней страницы." --

Год, прожитый по-библейски

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.

My Experimental Life

An eBook boxed set that features the first three of A.J. Jacobs's riotous—and surprisingly informative—ventures into experiential journalism. The Know-It-All: Puzzle along with A.J. as he endeavors to read—and retain—the entire encyclopedia, and discover what exactly it is he learns along the way. The Year of Living Biblically: Discover what life would be like in the 21st century if you lived precisely by the dictates of the Bible—the insights gained about religion might surprise you. My Life as an Experiment: Join A.J. on a roller-coaster tour of life as a human guinea pig: he explores both the perks and pitfalls of various undertakings in a series of charming essays, including those titled “My Outsourced Life" and "My Life as a Beautiful Woman."

The Know-It-All, The Year of Living Biblically, My Life as an Experiment

A.J. Jacobs Omnibus

Culled from the 1960s television cartoon series of the same name, a collection of off-the-wall revisions of immortal fairy tales is illustrated with art from the original series

Fractured Fairy Tales

33,000 pages 44 million words 10 billion years of history 1 obsessed man Part 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, shall we say, 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 endeavors 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 paralyzing 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 soul-searching, ultimately touching struggle between the all-consuming quest for factual knowledge and the undeniable gift of hard-won wisdom.

A. J. Jacobs

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