A new low

So I've been reading "The Know-It-All" which is about the author's determining to fill in the gaps in his education by reading the entirety of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Finished it up last night. It's part memoir, part collection of amusing factoids, part meditation on the entwined nature of knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom.

The other night, I realized that I was sitting around and reading a book about someone who was sitting around and reading the encyclopedia.

Even for me, this is an odd pastime. I am a meta-loser.

A distressing thought

So, I just finished reading A.J. Jacobs's "A Year of Living Biblically." This was a great book! I found it to be funny, poignant, wise. Jacobs is a great writer, and he found such depth and wisdom in these dusty old OT regulations. I want to try this too! Although maybe not to the extreme that he did.

So, the other day I was looking for a new book to pass my time on the train. I've been feeling a need recently to "break out of the Christian Bubble" a bit, so I didn't want to get something Christian-themed. I picked up Jacobs's previous book, about reading his way through the Encyclopedia Britannica. It's definitely a different book, but there are moments that are funny, poignant, wise. He's finding value in these dusty old books that I never would have imagined. I want to read through the Encyclopedia Brittanica too!

Uh oh.

What if the value I found in "The Year of Living Biblically" was less a function of the wisdom in Scripture and more that I really like A.J. Jacobs and his perspective on life?