While browsing through Rivendell (a great second-hand bookstore in Barrie), my friend Brian plucked this volume off the shelf and told me I had to buy it. Since he knows my sense of humour better than pretty much anyone, I brought it home.

This book is hilarious. I don’t use that superlative often, but it’s apt—apt, I tell you! The Year of Living Biblically is Jacobs’ attempt to follow every rule he could discover in the Bible, especially the odd ones. He devoted two thirds of his time to the Hebrew Bible, and the last third to the New Testament.

His sense of humour makes this book worth buying, but it’s his honesty that empowered the experiment. As a self-admitted agnostic, it was interesting to see how habits like daily prayer modified his outlook on life. As a pastor, I could only wish that the believers I know would approach their spiritual journey with such candor.

He wrote a book before this one (The Know-It-All), and another one after (The Guinea Pig Diaries). I’ll be launching into them soon.

Jacobs, A. J. The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. Simon and Schuster, 2007.