Arnold Stephen Jacobs, Jr., commonly called A.J. Jacobs (born March 20 1968, New York City) is an American journalist and author. Jacobs was born in New York City to lawyer Arnold Jacobs Sr. and Ellen Kheel. He has one sister, Beryl Jacobs. Jacobs studied philosophy at Brown University. Jacobs is best known for having read all 32 volumes of the Encyclopædia Britannica, and wrote about his experiences in his humorous book, The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World. The book received generally good reviews, with one exception of note. Joe Queenan wrote a caustic review of the book in The New York Times Book Review, which led to a brief feud between the two authors. Jacobs responded to Queenan's review in an essay, also published in the New York Times, which referred to Queenan as a "Mencken manqué." Jacobs is currently writing the screenplay for a film adaptation of "The Know-It-All" in the works from Paramount Pictures and Radar Pictures. [1] Jacobs wrote an article for Esquire in 2007 called "I Think You're Fat", about the experiment he conducted with Radical Honesty, a lifestyle of total truth-telling promoted by Virginia therapist Brad Blanton, whom Jacobs interviewed for the article. Jacobs is also the author of and America Off-Line. He also writes for mental_floss, a trivia magazine. Jacobs' new book, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, chronicles his attempts to live for one year according to all the moral codes expressed in the Bible, including stoning adulterers, blowing a trumpet at the beginning of every month, and refraining from trimming his facial hair. Paramount is also developing "The Year of Living Biblically," with director Julian Farino attached and Jay Reiss adapting the screenplay. [2] [3] He is married to Julie Schoenberg and has three sons: Jasper Kheel Jacobs born March 11, 2004 [4], and twins Zane and Lucas Jacobs born August 24, 2007 [5]. He is the editor at large for Esquire and previously worked for the Antioch Daily Ledger and Entertainment Weekly.
Experiments with Wikipedia
When Jacobs outsourced his life for an Esquire piece, he asked his Indian assistant, "Honey K Balani", to write a biography about himself on Wikipedia. A bizarre article soon appeared on Jacobs calling him "The King who thinks he Knows it ALL!", "a not so unheard international figure" and a "writer and editor of phenomenal grey-matter" ... "a living form of encyclopedia at large." In September 2005, Jacobs (with Esquire magazine) participated in an experiment of the "wiki process". He submitted an intentionally error-riddled article to Wikipedia which discussed the peculiarities of such an encyclopedia. After about two days and 373 edits, he was pleased with the version, stating, "I feel like I should submit all my articles to the community to get them Wikipedia-ized. I can't wait to print this in Esquire magazine."
References
- ^ About A.J. Jacobs, AJJacobs.com
- ^ [1] Variety, June 12, 2007
- ^ [2] http://www.cinematical.com/2007/06/09/paramount-developing-year-of-living-biblically/
- ^ Jacobs, A.J. The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World. (2004) Simon & Schuster Paperbacks. p. 371.
- ^ Jacobs, A.J. The Year of Living Bibically (2007) Simon & Schuster. p. 314-316.
External links
- Official website
- "Encyclopedia Man", NPR. February 2004.
- "'The Know-It-All': A Little Learning Is a Dangerous Thing", New York Times. October 2004
- "I Am Not A Jackass", New York Times. February 2005
- "My Outsourced Life", Esquire Magazine. September 2005.
- "I Think You're Fat", Esquire Magazine. August 2007.
- "Esquire wikis article on Wikipedia", NEWS.COM. September 2005.
- A.J. Jacobs Interview on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos
- A.J. Jacobs discusses "The Year of Living Biblically"
