It's All Relative: We're All Linked

I am a fan of A.J. Jacobs' stuff* so I was excited to receive a copy of his newest work It's All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree in exchange for an honest review.

I am a fan of the guy so I was pretty sure I was going to enjoy whatever latest project he was going to immerse himself in. Turns out yes, this is true. It probably isn't my favorite among his "humble quests" but it's still a fun one.

The basic idea here is that everyone is related if you go back far enough. And in many cases you really don't have to go that far back at all. Everyone is family. Jacobs received an email from that said "You don't know me, but I'm your eight cousin" and like that, Jacobs is hooked on finding out who this family is and, importantly, throwing the biggest family reunion.

Jacobs does what he does, which is really dive into the nitty gritty about genetics (spitting in every vial sent to him by whatever groups will analyze his DNA and tell him where his ancestors are from and who he is related to), speaking with all kinds of experts is genealogy and history, and of course talking to event planners and figuring out how exactly to pull off a huge event, aka the Global Family Reunion (which happened a few years ago, in case anyone was wondering if they could attend).

 The overarching theme is that everyone is family so maybe we should all be a little kinder to one another, like you would with family. His brother-in-law refutes this idea, saying there are PLENTY of people that don't like their family and sure that is true. But still. Maybe if you realize you're family you'll be more likely to cut each other a little bit of slack.

The book has a lot of funny moments, as all Jacobs' stuff does

On the one hand, there shouldn't be alcohol [at the Global Family Reunion]: It's a family event with a lot of boisterous kids running around. On the other hand, there should be alcohol: It's a family event with a lot of boisterous kids running around.

though it felt more repetitive than his other stuff. But the book is also goes by quickly so it never totally veered into "I'm annoyed, you already said that" territory.

If you like the guy and/or are interesting in family trees and genealogy, give this a try. If you're new to him, maybe check out one of his others first (Biblically and Know-It-All are both personal favs).

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*Oh hey, a round up of his other stuff that I've reviewed here
Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection
The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World
My Life as an Experiment: One Man's Humble Quest to Improve Himself by Living as a Woman, Becoming George Washington, Telling No Lies, and Other Radical Tests
The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

Title quote from location 2753

Jacobs, A.J. It's All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree. Simon & Schuster, 2017. NetGalley

I thought religion would make me live with my heads in the clouds, but often as not, it grounds me in this world

I enjoy A.J. Jacobs books. They're light, quick read. Every since The Know-It-All made its rounds among my group of friends in college, I've picked up his stuff when I come across it*. So on a trip to Boston I saw his Year of Living Biblically (and Gulp by Mary Roach, but that is for another time) I needed to have it. NEEDED IT, I say.

The basic format of Jacobs' memoirs is A.J. does something (reads the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, tries out a bunch of health regimens, etc.) and writes about it. This time he's decided to follow the Bible, spending most of his time in the Hebrew Bible (he is Jewish, after all) but still dipping his toes into the New Testament. He describes himself as "Jewish the way the Olive Garden is Italian" but since he and his wife are trying for another kid, he decides he wants to understand religion more. He wants to experience the original meaning of the Bible, while acknowledging there is not necessarily any original meaning.

And so he does the big things (thou shalt not kill) and the smaller things (wear fringe); he consults with scholars and other smart people, and he spends a year living the Bible as literally as possible. He gets strange looks. He finds things he likes and wants to keep up in his daily life after his experiment is over. He finds things that aren't really for him, but he learns about their importance and meaning. And he keeps a pretty open mind which is no small task considering he visits some Creationists.

A friend of mine said that we shouldn't underestimate people's ability to hold totally contradictory opinions and be just fine with it. 

He makes jokes throughout the book cos that's his thing and the book would be boring without it. It never feels like he's making jokes at the expense of others (maybe himself and every once in awhile his wife). This humor leads to situations such as finally understanding the meaning of the Sabbath after accidentally getting locked in a bathroom for a couple hours. No phone, nothing to read. Just four hours waiting for his wife to come up to sit and think and eventually pray, while the world rushes on without him.

This is what the Sabbath should feel like. A pause. Not just a minor pause, but a major pause.  Not just a lowering of the volume, but a muting.

I can't say I learned a lot about religion, but then again, that isn't really the point. It's memoir with a theme. And I'm sure I'll read whatever other theme he comes up with next.

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*Other books include Drop Dead Healthy, and My Life as Experiment

Title quote page 172

Jacobs, A.J., The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. Arrow Books, 2007.

The key to making healthy decisions is to respect your future self

Drop Dead Healthy by A. J. Jacobs might be the first book I've listened to exclusively as an audiobook. The other audiobooks I've listened to have all been books I've read, books I own and can go back to and look up. I can't do that easily with Drop Dead Healthy so forgive me if this makes even less sense than my normal reviews.

In the vein of other Jacobs books, like The Know-It-All and My Life as an Experiment, Jacobs decides to use himself as a guinea pig and learn as much as he can about a topic. This time around Jacobs learns how to be the healthiest person ever. He focuses on a different organ or area each month, learning all he can about eyesight, the dangers of loud noise on your ears, all of the benefits of exercising and eating healthy. Things are fairly obvious at the start. "Oh, you're saying it's healthy for me to eat right? And the sky is blue you say? Go on." But he goes into what does it mean to eat right based on a number of different people: a group of slooooooooow eaters, vegans, raw food, caveman/paleo.

This isn't a scientific book. He talks to experts (or pseudo-experts) about all of the different topics, and I believe (because the nytimes review told me so) he even references Mary Roach's Bonk a few times, but you couldn't/wouldn't really use this as a how-to book for being healthy yourself. But there are a few jumping off points to at least get you started. The idea of a treadmill desk sounds like a great idea. Too bad I don't have a treadmill.*

As with his other books, Jacobs is a funny guy. He never takes himself too serious, even if he is serious about getting healthy. He was prompted to start this two-year journey after getting pneumonia while on vacation in the Caribbean and was worried that he wouldn't be there in the long-term of his family. He honestly wants to get healthy and he's open-minded about it. Take 15 minutes to eat a blueberry might be impractical, but there is something to be said for eating slower. He learns about how sitting for long periods is just TERRIBLE for you. "It's like Paula-Deen-glazed-bacon-doughnut bad" in Jacob's words. So he made a point to move around. Hence the treadmill desk. And literally running errands. I recently got a FitBit and I realize how much time I spend not-walking. It's sort of depressing.

The book was entertaining and while Jacobs isn't my favorite reader (he narrates the audibook) he did a good job. It's not a book the necessarily requires you to pay a lot of attention so it worked well for me as an audibook. Plus I listened to it during our mini-readathon and audiobooks are perfect for readathons. Assuming you, like me, spend a lot of readathon time being on social media. (I am bad at readathons.)

Jacobs books are always entertaining and I'm sure I'll end up reading Year of Living Biblically.

Also, I would like you to all now this officially means I'm finally done reviewing books that I finished in 2014. PROGRESS!

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*We actually do have a treadmill desk at the office. I feel like I should give this a try sometime. Except for the fact that I'd probably spend the entire time being super self-conscious and wouldn't get any work done.

Jacobs, A. J. Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection. Simon & Schuster, 2012. Audibook.

The goal is that you're able to keep the good parts and not descend into insanity

During my spree of the remainder tables I found this book My Life as an Experiment by A.J. Jacobs. If I wasn't already familiar with his earlier book The Know-It-All I probably would have skipped over this. But KIA was hilarious and this was on sale so how could I turn this down? I couldn't. Exactly.

It's not so much a single cohesive narrative like The Know-It-All was. It's more a series of experiments over a period of time. Some of those experiments are going on during his other books and they take place over a few years. And each chapter/experiment is sort of its own stand alone story. Which is fine because the chapters are hilarious. In one instance he tries Radical Honesty, in another he pretends to be a celebrity, then he does everything his wife asks. It's such a random selection of experiments. And it's fun to see someone that's no me try them. Because with his experiments there is something to be learned from each of them, but if you were to actually go to the extent he does, you're going to probably go insane. Or be that guy that tells everyone the truth all the time. And not just the truth but just says whatever pops into his head at any given moment. He gets slapped a lot, is what I'm saying.

My favorite chapter was "My Outsourced Life" where he he outsourced everything to an Indian company that acts as a personal assistant. Actually he had two assistants to cover everything from writing memos and scheduling dinner to bickering with his wife and reading bed time stories to his son. (It's less cynical that that sounds.) Because really, having a personal assistant sounds fantastic, even if they are halfway around the world.

Overall a funny and quick read and one I'm sure I'll pick up again when I want something light. It's a good get-out-of-reading-slump book. It didn't make me want to actually try out any of his experiments myself but it was fun to see him act like a human guinea pig. I'll just learn through his experiments. Plus, it makes me want to read his other book The Year of Living Biblically. Moar Jacobs please.

Title quote from page xiii

Jacobs, A. J. My Life as an Experiment: One Man's Humble Quest to Improve Himself by Living as a Woman, Becoming George Washington, Telling No Lies and Other Radical Tests. Simon & Schuster, 2009.

You'd be surprised at how many days can go by without one of my friends mentioning aardvarks

After Speak and Sula I needed a funny book. Something simple before pressing onto Emma Donoghue's Room. Luckily enough I acquired an e-copy of The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A. J. Jacobs. This is only my second re-read of the year. Back when I was in college this book made the rounds with my friends. A friend* bought the book and ended up recommending it to a friend, who then told our other friend they had to read it and etc, etc. While my friends and I have different personal tastes we all share a similar sense of humor and this one worked for most people.

So A.J. decides after working at Entertainment Weekly and Esquire for so long he's filled his head is filled with pop culture trivia instead of real facts and his solution to fix this is to read the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica. This isn't going to give you any greater meaning into intelligence versus knowledge (though people argue the point with him several times) but it gives you the insight in what it would be like if your friend or loved one was reading this tome and decided to share all sorts of random facts at all times. Some of these tidbits stick with you. For example "Abalones are a type of snail with five assholes" (location 229). For whatever reason (probably because it's immature) I always remember this one. I've eaten abalone a couple times and while I don't always say this fact aloud, I think it every time.

This could very easily be a boring book. Honestly it sounds like a boring topic. Read about a guy who read the Encyclopedia Britannica. Not much excitement there. But he tells the story with humor, sometimes sharing the information he's learned about certain topics, sometimes trying to get onto TV game shows (Jeopardy, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?) and a lot of the time it's how his constant fact sharing annoys his friends and family. There is a bit of a sub-plot about A.J. and his wife trying to get pregnant but honestly, I enjoyed those detours less than the main story.

It's a fun story, it's light, you can finish it quickly and you might learn a fact or two. And so you can experience the humor, here are a couple quotes I highlighted (I love my Kindle)

Telling his father his plan:

"I'm going to read the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica"
A pause. "I hear that the Ps are excellent."

I feel like this is my attention span:

In some ways, it's the perfect book for someone like me...who has the attention span of a gnat on methamphetamines

Rap making it's way into the EB

Public Enemy and Wu-Tang Clan "were among the popular purveyors of rap during the 1980s and 1990s." Purveyors of rap?  Now that's got to be the whitest phrase I've ever heard."

A good how-to-be-a-know-it-all lesson

One secret to being a successful know-it-all is extreme confidence.

*This is the same friend that lent me Kitchen Confidential, The City and The City and numerous other books.

Title quote from location 223

Jacobs, A. J. The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World. Simon & Schuester. 2004 eBook.