A.J. Jacobs

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jacobs on the cover of Mensa Bulletin.

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. Joe Queenan's caustic review of the book in The New York Times Book Review led to a brief feud between the two authors, in which Jacobs (in a letter also published in the New York Times) referred to Queenan as a schoolyard bully and a reader wrote in, defending Jacobs from what was seen as a personal attack from Queenan.^[1]

Jacobs is also the author of The Two Kings: Elvis and Jesus and America Off-Line. He also writes for mental_floss, a trivia magazine.

Jacobs is working on his next book, A Year of Living Biblically, based on his experiences attempting to live according to all the moral codes expressed in the Bible (from the well-known to the obscure) for one year, including one that prohibits trimming his facial hair. Accordingly, Jacobs grew a beard in December 2005. Jacobs is currently writing the screenplay for a film adaptation of "The Know-It-All" in the works from Paramount Pictures and Radar Pictures. ^[2]

He is married to Julie Schoenberg and has a son, Jasper Kheel Jacobs. He worked for the Antioch Daily Ledger and Entertainment Weekly before becoming an Esquire magazine editor.

[edit] Experiments with Wikipedia

When Jacobs began outsourcing his life for an Esquire piece, he asked his Indian assistant, "Honey K Balani", to write a biography of 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 article (riddled with errors) to Wikipedia, an article discussing 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."