The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible As Literally As Possible

by A.J. Jacobs

I got an unexpected email today. It arrived in my in-box at 1:07 p.m. from a guy named Kevin Roose.

I’m still friends with my former intern and biblical bread-baker, Kevin Roose. And he has had quite a journey since this book! While he was working for me, I took Kevin on my trip to Jerry Falwell’s church in Virginia. Kevin found it fascinating. On the way back to New York, Kevin said he had a book idea: What if he transferred from Brown, where he was a sophomore, to Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University for a semester. In other words, go from one of the most liberal universities to one of the most conservative. And he figured he could write a book with the theme, ‘my semester abroad in the Bible belt.’ I told him I thought that was a fascinating idea – as long as he made it nuanced and thoughtful, and not a simple hatchet job. I introduced Kevin to my agency, he wrote a great proposal, got a book contract, transferred to Liberty – and published a wonderful book. It’s called “The Unlikely Disciple,” and it is indeed nuanced and thoughtful. Not only that, Kevin has gone onto superstardom in the writing world. He is a tech columnist for the New York Times and host of the podcast “Hard Fork.” He also wrote a famous column for the New York Times about how AI fell in love with him and tried to break up his marriage.