I fear I have delayed too long to remember sufficiently well the details of Jacobs' books, which I received as a present from my sister-in-law of recent vintage; nonetheless, I shall essay to convey my general impressions of both so that others might ascertain whether they would derive pleasure from their reading.
The first of the set, entitled The Know-It-All, details Mr. Jacobs' quest to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, an endeavor with which I can empathize, although I would prefer to pursue other avenues of knowledge. One of the victims of electronic cataloguing is the serendipitous juxtaposition of two sources which, if one inspected both, prove the have a wholly unanticipated and mutually enlightening effect; even a perusal of the encyclopedia can produce a mild form of this epiphany. One of the faults Jacobs developed this project was the unwanted and occasionally unwarranted intrusion of trivia in the flow of quotidian conversation, to which effect, I fear, I am not immune. His initial noxious habit, however, soon came under his control . Several of his acquaintances erroneously assumed that Jacobs' goal was the retention of of every entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica, but in truth it was more an experiment in non-prejudicial accumulation of knowledge, in which the reader must accept the system imposed by others. The result of the experiment are more profound than the substantial accumulation of knowledge, but I shall trust that the reader will discover so himself.
The second book, A Year of Living Biblically, in which Jacobs undertakes to love for a full year by following the Bible as literally as possible, caused more fundamental changes to Jacobs' character. The interval of this experiment was longer than a year, due to the preparations necessary to undertake the task. Jacobs chose to place emphasis on different commandments every day, although certain hazards prompted him to discreetly drop or minimize commandments liable to result in arrest or assault. He spent much time interviewing religious leaders of varying degrees and types of fundamentalism (for this category is not as monolithic as some would prefer to think), excepting those proximity might prove hazardous to a child of Abraham. His visit to the much-maligned snake-handling community was enlightening, although it seems that he failed to take into account the impossibility of experiment and Chistian experience. Ul;timately, he was transformed by his religious experiment \, which makes this book and its predecessor as close to novels as narratives based on blogs can approach.
