A.J. Jacobs is a secular, agnostic Jew who lives in a small apartment in New York with his wife and children. He is also an editor of Esquire magazine. He decides to spend an entire year trying to live the bible in a literal manner. The plan is to spend 8 months following the commandments in the Hebrew bible and the last 4 months following all the rules in the New Testament. He finished the book still an agnostic but what he calls a 'reverent agnostic' meaning somebody who has a much better awareness of his surroundings, of the needs of others and of the general 'goodness of life'.

The book gave me some really good laughs. The biggest ones mostly involved those situations with his wife. He can't touch her or even sit in the same seat as her for 7 days after she is 'unclean' so to get back at him she sits in every seat in the house - making him stand or sit on the floor. He needs to build a ritual shelter but this isn't so easy in an apartment in New York, so he builds it in the living room. His wife is not annoyed but actually impressed that he has managed to build anything at all. Jacobs even goes out to Central park to find an adulterer to stone. When he finds a man who is only to willing to talk about his adultry he discovers that the stoning part - reduced to chucking a couple of small pebbles at the man - is a little more difficult.

We get to learn about some pretty bizarre customs of the different Jewish groups that Jacobs goes to visit. We get to know Mr. Berkowitz who comes to his apartment to investigate his clothes for mixed fibers - not allowed in the Hebrew bible and then later on helps Jacobs with some kind of ceremony that involves a birds egg and the mother bird. We find out that Hasidic Jews have a rave party once a year.

This is a book that you can dip in and out of very easily. It is organized by 'commandment' meaning this: Jacobs discovered early on that trying to follow every single commandment at the same time is pretty much impossible so he tries to fulfill every one at least once. There are some he tries to follow consistently such as not shaving his beard, wearing tassles on the corners of his clothes, wearing white, not lying. Of course he finds the 'not lying' one a bit difficult to do all the time!

Near the end of the book one of his neighbors who he barely knows dies. He had wanted to help her write a book on Jimi Hendrix after he had gotten to know her during his biblical year but in the end he didn't seem to have time. One thing I was a little sad about was that Jacobs really seemed to find that the bible gave him structure for his life that he was missing. But he never stopped to ask the question as to whether some of that structure (for example, giving his oldest child some discipline) could have been arrived at just through common sense rather than needing mystical books to provide that guidance. He is concerned that he might be doing good because a book told him to do so rather than because he wanted to. In the end it only matters that you do good, surely?

The book has been around for more than a year and is now available in paperback - really good read and something that is at the same time light, informative and funny.