AJ Jacobs

AJ Jacobs is the editor at large at Esquire magazine and author of three New York Times bestsellers.

In 2004, Simon & Schuster published The Know-It-All. It subsequently spent eight weeks on the New York Times paperback bestseller list. It was praised by Time magazine, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, USA Today, Janet Maslin in the New York Times and AJs uncle Henry on Amazon.com.

In 2007, The Year of Living Biblically was released. It has spent three months on the NYT bestseller list, and was praised by Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, The New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and others. It appeared on the cover of the evangelical magazine Relevant, but was also featured in Penthouse. (Jacobs is proud to be a uniter, not a divider).

In the summer of 2010 comes the paperback of his book My Life as an Experiment: One Man's Humble Quest to Improve Himself. The book contains some previously published experiments (including My Outsourced Life, Jacobs quest to delegate every task in his life to India). It also has new experiments -- including life-changing quests featuring George Washingtons rules of life, marital harmony, marital disharmony, multitasking and nudity - not in that order. (The book came out in Hardcover in 2009 under the title The Guinea Pig Diaries)

In addition to his books, Jacobs written for The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, New York magazine and Dental Economics magazine, one of the top five magazines about the financial side of toothcare.

He has appeared on Oprah, The Today Show, Good Morning America and Late Night with Conan OBrien (though Conan did decline Jacobs offer to bring the remnants of his shaved beard in a plastic bag).

He is a periodic commentator on NPRs Weekend Edition Saturday, where he discusses important facts, such as the fact that opossums have 13 nipples.

The Year of Living Biblically is currently being developed by Paramount Pictures, and My Outsourced Life is being developed at Universal Pictures.

He's now working on a book called The Healthiest Human Being in the World. It continues Jacobs experiential journalism series as he tries to perfect his physical condition while simultaneously dissecting the meaning of the word healthiest.

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 (4,824). His wife works for a highbrow scavenger hunt called Watson Adventures. He lives in New York with his family. He wonders if he fooled anyone with this third-person thing, or if everyone knows that he wrote this bio himself.