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A. J. Jacobs Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

A. J. Jacobs
Photo: William Pelkey

A. J. Jacobs

A. J. Jacobs Biography

A.J. Jacobs is an author, journalist, and a lecturer. He has written a few New York Times bestsellers that combine memoir, science, humor and a dash of self-help. He is also editor-at-large at Esquire magazine, a commentator on NPR and a columnist for Mental Floss magazine. He is currently helping to build a family tree of the entire world and holding the biggest family reunion ever in 2015.

His bestsellers include The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection. He also published a collection of essays called My Life as an Experiment: One Man's Humble Quest to Improve Himself.

He is currently working on a book about how we are all related. Jacobs grew up in New York City. His father is a lawyer who holds the world record for the most footnotes in a law review article (4,812). His wife works for a highbrow scavenger hunt called Watson Adventures. He lives in New York with his family.

A. J. Jacobs's website

This bio was last updated on 07/10/2015. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

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Books by this Author

Books by A. J. Jacobs at BookBrowse
It's All Relative jacket Drop Dead Healthy jacket The Year of Living Biblically jacket The Know-It-All jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for A. J. Jacobs but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Brock Clarke

    Brock Clarke

    Brock Clarke is the author of seven books of fiction, most recently a collection of short stories, The Price of the Haircut. His novels include The Happiest People in the World, Exley (which was a Kirkus Book of the Year, a ... (more)

  • Anne Curzan

    Anne Curzan

    Anne Curzan is the Geneva Smitherman Collegiate Professor of English Language and Literature, Linguistics, and Education and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at the University of Michigan, where she also currently serves as the... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Know-It-All

    Try:
    Says Who?
    by Anne Curzan

We recommend 7 similar authors

View all 7 Read-Alikes

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  • Reviews
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  • Free books to read and review (US only)
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In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
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