Given to me by my wife on Christmas (and, incidentally, eaten by my dog exactly one month later), The Year Of Living Biblically was written by A.J. Jacobs, an editor of Esquire magazine. Jacobs’ previous book (The Know-It-All) entailed reading the encyclopedia in its entirety. To find a gimmick for his next project, Jacobs turned to an even more popular volume: The Bible.

Jacobs spends a year attempting to follow all the Old Testament’s instructions as literally as possible, in ways both expected (forgiving debts; praying regularly; avoiding pridefulness) and less expected (purging his wardrobe of mixed-fiber clothing; making melodies with a harp of ten strings; cooking unleavened bread by letting the sun harden it on his back). Over his year of “living Biblically,” Jacobs assembles a group of spiritual advisors, and takes field trips to destinations ranging from Pennsylvania Amish Country; to The Creation Museum; to a sort of all-male Hasidic mosh pit on the Jewish holiday of Simchas Torah; to Jerusalem itself.

In general, this book is more entertaining than it is exploratory, and reads like an expanded magazine feature (not that that's a bad thing). Jacobs is a genuinely funny writer, but he can be sincere as well. And to his credit, he restrains himself from taking cheap shots at others’ beliefs. Jacobs acknowledges that this is a change of behavior for him, and attributes his diminishing capacity for cynicism to his new-found habits—in other words, he wonders whether physically acting like a better person might be spiritually transforming him into a better person.

Beginning his journey as an agnostic, Jacobs ends it as a “reverent agnostic”—which, he insists, is not the oxymoron it might first appear to be. “Whether or not there’s a God,” Jacobs writes, “there is such a thing as sacredness.” In Jacobs’ experience, sacredness is a quality that transcends everyday life, and one which will motivate him to continue his habit of everyday prayer—even if he’s still not completely sure to whom, or to what, he is praying.

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Ultimately, I’m not sure what Jacobs will retain from his experience. But I know what I’m going to retain. It’s the following joke, told to Jacobs and his wife by one of the Pennsylvania Amish:

Q. What happened when the Amish man married the Mennonite woman?

A. He drove her buggy!