So MillieJupiter brought me an audio book the other day just out of the blue. Never heard of it, never heard of the author. She told me she had not read it but had it recommended by several of her patrons (she is a librarian…) This is not a recipe for getting me to read something but contrary to my norm, I decided to give this one a try and I am so glad I did.
This book is funny, downright, laugh out loud funny, look around while driving to see if other people are seeing you laugh funny. The author performs social / psychological experiments on himself, and details the results. His first book was about living an entire year following the rules of the bible. Not just the obvious “thou shalt not kill” stuff but things like not cutting his beard and not wearing clothes of mixed fabrics. “The Guinea Pig Diaries” takes this concept a bit further, detailing a number of social experiments and then discussing the good and bad of each. What kind of experiments you ask?
Well, he poses as a beautiful woman on a dating web site to understand the frustrations a woman in this position would feel. He totally accepts radical honesty therapy and lives his life for a time being brutally honest. He out sources his life to India, hiring two different firms to handle his business and personal life. He does everything his wife asks for a month. He impersonates a movie star at the Oscar Awards, poses nude for a article in Esquire magazine. He lives his life according to George Washington’s 110 rules of behavior. All these and more are reported on, both the positives and negatives of his experience.
He reads the audio book himself which adds to the experience in my opinion. He has a bit of a quirky voice, nasally with accents and emphasis in different places than you would expect which adds to the humor. And then there is the various stories he tells. In his honesty experiment telling his mother-in-law, he hates her birthday present to him (a gift card, he feels like he is given a chore to do). Having an argument with his wife thru the Indian outsourcing group and having them answer his email and write press releases are both hysterical. Letting some guy down gently after he realizes he is not right for “her” is a classic. Having the Indian group purchase gifts for his wife and son for their birthdays and reading to his son one night when he has work to do, is just scream out loud funny as he details a man with an accent read the newspaper to his 4 year old (it’s not the words that are important but the cadence and tone of the voice that helps him off to sleep).
Overall, I give this book a rating of Four Penguins.
The thing that keeps me from giving it five penguins is that some people might be irritated by his voice and I wondered how the stories would be in print, rather than just listening. It has humor, it is entertaining and it is fun. If you want a taste of his style, he was on Stephen Colbert, and this link will bring you to several of Jacobs’ videos about the experiments and his books. Very good stuff.
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