Joy in the Morning

Who could resist that endorsement from Douglas Adams on the cover of Joy in the Morning? I used to read loads of PG Wodehouse in high school, but I'm not sure I've picked one up in the last forty years. Have I read Joy in the Morning before? Who knows? It's a Jeeves and Wooster book (always my favourite genre of Wodehouse, though I also dabbled in Psmith and Blandings), and it involves numerous misunderstandings, fancy dress, secret meetings, a cottage burning down (which event everyone takes far too lightly, in my opinion), a zealous Boy Scout, and an earnest policeman. As usual, Bertie Wooster tries to help out his friends, finds himself quickly out of his depth, and has to call on the inimitable Jeeves for solutions (there was not quite enough Jeeves in this volume for my money, but I'm sure I can rectify that elsewhere). The thing about Wodehouse is, you know exactly what you're in for.

At first I couldn't help hearing Wooster's narration in the perfect voice of  Hugh Laurie (what an inspired piece of casting that was!), but I was soon reminded of why I adored these books so much as a teenager. Wodehouse's reputation took a massive hit in the UK after he broadcast to America from Germany during the war (to be fair, he was stuck there, and the broadcasts were comic, not political), but I feel as if he's gradually been rehabilitated, though he never returned to live in the UK again. Joy in the Morning was published in 1948, when he was probably held in greatest scorn in his native land.

Wodehouse excels at two things: neatly constructed, absurdist plots, and an utterly delightful, idiosyncratic voice. Playful, energetic, mellifluous and uniquely convoluted, every page presents fresh treasures. Opening at random:

There arose before me a vision of this relative by marriage, as he would probably appear directly I mentioned Boko's name -- the eyes glaring, the moustache bristling and the tout ensemble presenting a strong resemblance to a short-tempered tiger of the jungle which has just seen its peasant shin up a tree. And while it would be going too far, perhaps, to say that Bertram Wooster shuddered, a certain coolness of the feet unquestionably existed.

Now, you either love this stuff or you hate it. Me, I think I still love it.

A Murder Is Going Down

I read and thoroughly enjoyed Kate Emery's CBCA Notable from last year, My Family and Other Suspects, and I'm delighted to report that A Murder Is Going Down is more in the same vein. It's not a sequel, but an entirely new story, which opens with our narrator, Heidi, and an older woman called Marianne, stuck in a lift together; Heidi begins to tell Marianne the story of a murder that was committed when her sister-in-law was also stuck in a lift -- the murder of Heidi's older brother Felix. 

From here, the story cuts between the pair in the lift, and the story that Heidi's telling. It sounds grim but fortunately Felix was a very unpleasant person, violent, manipulative and cruel, so we can regard his death with a degree of relief and concentrate on solving the mystery (which matters because if Felix killed himself, as the police might conclude, his lovely wife Elena loses out on the insurance payout). Heidi joins forces with Elena's younger brother, the annoying but charming Patrick, to unravel the clues.

A Murder is Going Down is heaps of fun. Heidi's narration and banter zing, the characters are appealing and well drawn, and the mystery (and the mystery within the mystery!) unfolds in a satisfyingly twisty fashion. The copy I borrowed from the library had already obviously been well read, unlike some of the notables I pluck from the shelves, sad to say, and it's refreshing to read a story set in Perth. I am already a big fan of Kate Emery and I hope she keeps producing these enormously entertaining novels.
 

The Impossible Fortune

How lovely to be back with the Thursday Murder Club gang again! Though I must admit that the Netflix movie has irreversibly influenced the way I picture the characters now -- and there was a nice cheeky reference to Pierce Brosnan being the best James Bond (which may be the case, but he still isn't quite how I imagined Ron). 

Sinking into The Impossible Fortune was like stepping into a warm bath -- totally comforting and nourishing, and exactly the kind of book I feel like reading at the moment. My only complaint was that there was not quite enough Bogdan; mind you, there are so many gorgeous characters milling about Coopers Chase by now that it's hard to give them all full air time. There are some lovely Joyce-Joanna moments in this novel that make up for it.

The Impossible Fortune takes our octogenarian crew into the world of Bitcoin and old-fashioned 'cold storage,' a service providing physical storage in an age where digital security has become vulnerable. There are explosions and secret codes and double crossing, but there is also another parallel plot involving Ron's daughter and grandson which is less showy, but possibly more important.

I know the Thursday Murder Club can't live forever, but please, can they have lots more adventures before we have to say goodbye?
 

What Rhymes With Murder

Disclaimer: I made friends with Penny Tangey at a posh school literature festival in Queensland when I was a relatively baby author and she had just published her first novel, Loving Richard Feynman, which I absolutely adored. Already her trademark droll wit was much in evidence, and it's been a consistent element of her work whether she's writing for a middle grade or young adult audience, or now for adults. (Recently I loved Music Camp.)

What Rhymes With Murder? is a mystery story, but the real pleasure of this book lies in the voice of Frida, a new mum who is anxious about everything, especially harm coming to her six month old baby, Finn, after an earlier miscarriage. Tangey is superb at interweaving genuine emotion with humour, and the reader's heart goes out to poor panicking Frida who can't get down the stairs from her apartment, as well as laughing at her put-upon, passive-aggressive hints to her partner about the housework.

 I pop Finn on his playmat and check on the machine. I plonk the clean washing into a basket then carry it to the lounge room, where I wrench open the balcony door. Outside I drop the basket with a thud.

    Ben asks, 'Are you okay?'

    'Yes. Just hanging out the wash.' As per usual.

    'Do you want me to do that?' 

    I shake my head. I don't want him to do it. I want him to have done it already.

There was an extra delight for me in the East Melbourne setting: my elder daughter has just moved into a tiny apartment in East Melbourne and I loved recognising the parks and thinly-disguised cafes of the area (I bought my copy of the book at the General Store which is surely the model for the 'Gipps St Cafe'.) There is a lot of coffee in this novel!

But there are serious themes here too, mostly about reproduction. Frida's post-natal mental health battles, anti-abortion activists, a local reproductive clinic suffering attacks from the same group, a group of three co-parents, a yearning grandmother, a childless professional -- and much of the action takes place at the library! What Rhymes With Murder? is very Melbourne and a lovely read.
 

My Brother the Orangutan

Disclaimer: Heather Gallagher is an old friend of mine. We met at ante-natal classes before our first babies were born, and quickly discovered that we had a lot in common -- not just living in adjacent suburbs, but Heather and I were both aspiring children's authors. It's hard to believe that was nearly twenty five years ago.

My Brother the Orangutan is a lively, fun body swap story in the best tradition of Paul Jennings. Esther and her brother Rex have newly arrived from the country to the city, where their dad has a new job working at the nearby zoo (every kid's dream, surely). But the family are also grappling with the recent death of Esther's beloved grandfather, and moving in with their eccentric grandmother, whose cooking tends to produce dishes like salmon and lychee souffle, or tuna and pineapple muffins. But the trouble really starts when Rex swaps bodies with Harta the orangutan and Esther finds herself sharing a bedroom with an ape in a boy's body, while her little brother is stuck in the zoo.

Resourceful Esther's hero is Sherlock Holmes and it doesn't take her long to start putting the vital clues together. But there's only so much an eleven year old can do to persuade adults that something truly bizarre is going on.

My Brother the Orangutan mixes a warm family story with a twisty magical mystery and plenty of laughs. It would make a fabulous read-aloud and I can see it appealing to reluctant readers, too. Lots of fun.
 

This Way Up

This Way Up: When Maps Go Wrong (And Why It Matters) by Mark Cooper-Jones and Jay Foreman (otherwise known as the Map Men) was a Christmas request from my younger daughter which I've since borrowed, and a very entertaining and educational read it was, too. The Map Men have a popular YouTube channel and have produced loads of short, entertaining and educational videos all about maps, which are quite addictive if you fancy getting lost down a cartographic rabbit hole.

This Way Up focuses on some truly bizarre map issues, like the weird history of regional television stations in the UK and why the areas they serviced bore almost no relationship to actual, you know, geography. (This chapter led to me and younger daughter watching nearly an hour of YouTube footage of ITV logos through the years.) There's a chapter about maps that omit New Zealand altogether (there's also a Reddit group that catalogues these -- I'm telling you, this book has sent me down many internet black holes). There's the story of how some completely non-existent mountains came to feature on maps of Africa for decades until someone worked out that they weren't actually real. And there's a chapter about Polynesian navigation by 'reading' the feel of waves, believe it or not -- incredible stuff.

The Map Men go to some lengths, probably not strictly necessary, to mix up their formats; one chapter is in the form of a (fictional) podcast script, one is a long poem. But honestly the subject matter is so fascinating that these flourishes and the liberal sprinkling of bad jokes really isn't needed. This Way Up is a total hoot, and I learned a lot.

Music Camp

I absolutely love Penny Tangey's books for middle graders; they are the perfect blend of wry humour and important questions. In Music Camp, we see events through the eyes of flautist Juliet, bookish loner, and bolshie recorder-player Miley as they negotiate making new friends, loving Miss Lin (who teaches them both) and the politics of Grade 6 music camp. Juliet's father has died; Miley and her mum have lost everything in recent floods. Neither of them wants to talk about it. Climate change gently but persistently hangs over the story, but never in an overwhelming or hopeless way.

Tangey is so good at sketching characters through young eyes. We can see for ourselves that Renee has issues with OCD and that Clara might have ADHD, without it being spelled out for us. Minor characters are beautifully outlined -- Ollie, who is a total player on the music camp scene but is apparently a bit of a dork at school; Liam the eager gossip; Mr Broadbent, who is reluctant to accept the sponsorship of the big fossil fuel company; Miss Lin, who is more focused on the benefits their money can bring the kids she teaches. There is a lot of Tangey's trademark droll humour in Music Camp.

I can't get enough of Tangey's writing and I'm so excited that she has an adult mystery out now, set in East Melbourne, What Rhymes with Murder? I can't wait.
 

The Diary of a Nobody

After listening to an episode of the Secret Life of Books podcast, I remembered how much I'd enjoyed reading George and Weedon Grossmith's The Diary of a Nobody while I was at school, and in a fit of nostalgia, borrowed it from the local library. I was quite surprised they had it, as they turn over their catalogue pretty fast, and Diary was first published in 1892.

SLOB alerted me to the class dimensions of the hunour -- I don't think I grasped, as a fourteen year old, that we were supposed to be laughing at the small pretensions and anxious respectability of the lower-middle class Pooters, as well as Charles' minor mishaps (painting the bath red) and feeble Dad jokes (you are talking a lot of dry rot yourself!). And I can't agree with Evelyn Waugh, who apparently described it as 'the funniest book in the world.' But I very much appreciated spending time in the Pooters' suburban world, trundling along in their comfortable social groove. It was extraordinary how relatable some of their problems still are: worrying about what to wear to a special event, fretting over their twenty year old son's life choices, getting in a huff over an offensive remark.

Most of all, I enjoyed this quiet celebration of modest lives. Pooter takes a refreshing pride in his lack of ambition, his desire to do his duty and keep his head down, and while I'm not sure if we are supposed to admire his humility and low-key virtues of fidelity and honesty, I can't help cheering for him and his 'dear Carrie.'
 

My Family and Other Suspects

Next on my CBCA Notables list was My Family and Other Suspects by Kate Emery. Yet another YA crime novel! This one was a hoot from start to finish: a kind of YA Benjamin Stevenson (Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone), with a lower body count and a dose of teen romance, and knowing asides to the reader. Fourteen year old Ruth is about to go home after a family holiday on her step-grandmother's isolated farm, when a suspicious death forces everyone to stay longer. Ruth and sort-of cousin Dylan set themselves to solve the many mysteries and secrets swirling through the extended family, to a dangerous and satisfying denouement.

Maybe the CBCA judges decided to eliminate all the crime stories from their shortlist, but in my opinion, My Family and Other Suspects should have been on it. It's deft and funny, smart and self-aware (and gets extra points from me for including McCullochs in the story -- one of my own family names). Murder and humour make a winning combination if you can pull it off, and Emery does so brilliantly. A joy to read.
 

Stay Well Soon

By chance, I read Emily Gale's comments on Penny Tangey's Stay Well Soon just as I was in the middle of reading it. Gale was writing about funny books, and complained that no one would ever guess that Stay Well Soon is a funny book by looking at the 'sad girl on the cover.' She pointed out that Stay Well Soon is a sad book, too, and it is -- it's a book about sibling illness, cancer, death and dying -- but seen through the eyes of our narrator, eleven year old Stevie, it's also very droll and delightful to read.

Stevie is a great protagonist. She's having friendship problems, and all she wants from life is a pony. She fantasises about riding her dream horse, Atta Girl, along beaches and through the desert, communicating telepathically. 'She'll let me know when the campfire is going out.' But when her brother gets sick, suddenly everything revolves around Ryan and his hospital treatments. Very plausibly, Stevie tries to push away her knowledge about what this might mean, but reality intrudes.

I loved Stevie, her friendship with Lara from the hospital, her family, her harassed Mum, who we can see is barely holding on, 'Dad Ben,' new friend Morgan, teacher Mr Parks. There are lots of funny schoolyard scenes, like when the group play Kidnappers and even more when they're playing Royal Family. I absolutely loved Stay Well Soon and Tangey strikes the perfect balance between poignant and snort-giggle.
 

Would That Be Funny? Growing up with John Clarke

It's hard to believe that John Clarke died way back in 2017. I can still feel the shock and hollow grief when I heard the news, sentiments shared by many others, as his daughter Lorin Clarke attests. Like the many strangers who have accosted her, I also 'grew up with him,' I also 'loved him so much' that he felt like a part of my family. From Fred Dagg monologues on The Science Show to the brilliant satire of The Games and of course the regular Clarke and Dawe interviews, it felt as if he'd always been part of the furniture.

Would That Be Funny? is a gorgeous tribute to a unique talent, a man filled with gentle mischief and rapier-sharp wit, who delighted in pricking the pomposity of authority and in playing with words and absurdity. The Clarke family home was a place brimming with in-jokes, wordplay and laughter. (Yes, says Lorin, he was just as funny at home.) We also learn about Clarke's rather unhappy childhood, lost youth and eventual rescue by friendships forged at university and his long supportive marriage (albeit low-key on the romance front, to the frustration of Lorin's sister Lucia).

Lorin Clarke is herself best known for the hugely successful Fitzroy Diaries, similarly grounded in everyday observations, quiet humour, gratitude and the quirks of ordinary people. Even if she wasn't John's daughter, she seems like the perfect person to memorialise Clarke the human, complementary to Clarke the comic genius. I stumbled across this book by accident on the shelves of the good old Athenaeum, and I'm so happy that I did. I can't believe that I hadn't heard anything about it before. (It was published in 2023.) Highly recommended.
 

Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect

I absolutely gobbled up Benjamin Stevenson's previous murder mystery novel, Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone, and its sequel, Everyone On This Train Is a Suspect, did not disappoint. Stevenson has immense fun playing with the conventions of rules of the mystery genre, pointing out when the rules are broken, and when he's adhering to them (hm, we're at the 60,000 word mark now, we're due for another murder). In fact the key word for Stevenson's books is playful, despite their sometimes gory and dark subject matter. 

There was an extra element of fun in this book for me, because it features a collection of murder writers, who each specialise in a different kind of mystery and thus contribute a special expertise to the deduction. Thus we have forensics, legal, psychological etc. Ernest himself is suffering from the insecurity of the debut novelist, and there are plenty of enjoyable digs at the publishing industry, literary festivals, writing snobbery and rivalries (of course this wouldn't be possible with a collection of kidlit and YA writers, because everyone in that community is so supportive and simply lovely -- I'm not even joking).

The idea of a crime writing festival held on the Ghan is simply gorgeous -- what a dream! I hope Stevenson got a grant for research. Trains, writers, murder and self-aware playfulness, as well as a genuinely clever and twisty plot: what more could you ask for? Oh, and it's Australian, too.

The Last Devil To Die

Months ago I read somewhere that the fourth volume in Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club series would be the last. However, an afterword to The Last Devil To Die assures me that there will be more mysteries for the club to solve in the future; Osman is going to write some different books for a while, but the gang from Coopers Chase will return. Phew!

That news is a huge relief because it would make me very sad to think that we'd seen the last of our crime-busting geriatric foursome and their friends. The plot of The Last Devil To Die revolves around a big bag of heroin and a mysterious ugly box, but it almost doesn't matter what criminal shenanigans are going on, because the true heart of the story lies with Stephen, in the relentless grip of dementia, and the friendship between his ruthlessly efficient ex-spy wife, Elizabeth; shrewd, chatty Joyce; kind, insightful Ibrahim; and gruff ex-union boss Ron. I would happily read a book about these four going to the supermarket, I just enjoy their company so much.

I laughed, I cried, and I can't wait for the next one.
 

Naked Ambition

Robert Gott's new novel, Naked Ambition, was just published this year, so I was quite surprised to find it in an op shop already -- maybe a book reviewer doing a clean-out? Their loss was my gain. Naked Ambition is a short novel with an entertainingly simple concept: Gregory is a young(ish) politician who has, against all common sense, commissioned a full frontal nude portrait of himself, to be entered in the Archibald Prize. All the women in his life -- his wife, his mother, his mother-in-law, his sister, his boss the Premier -- all think this is a terrible idea, for various different reasons, but Gregory insists on sticking to his plan. And then the portrait is stolen...

Naked Ambition unfolds almost like a play, with most of the characters assembled in one room and exchanging their views. There are really only a handful of scenes, so it wouldn't even be a very long play. I've enjoyed Robert Gott's previous work, his historical murder mysteries, also featuring self-centred, self-deluding men, and also his long-running cartoon series, The Adventures of Naked Man (what else!) It is funny to reflect on the disruptive effect of that simple thing, human nudity, and Naked Ambition neatly explores a variety of responses to Gregory's portrait. As usual with Gott's work, the women are far more intelligent and insightful than the men; but that doesn't necessarily mean that they'll come out on top. Which is also like real life, unfortunately.

The Colour of Magic

Terry Pratchett is an absolute legend (or was -- he left us in 2015). He left a legacy of dozens of hugely popular books, notably the 40-odd volume Discworld series, of which The Colour of Magic is the first volume. My main exposure to Pratchett's work has been watching the gorgeous Good Omens, a collaboration with Neil Gaiman, which I must admit I mainly watched for David Tennant and Michael Sheen. However, there's been so much love for Discworld and Pratchett that I thought I should dive in -- after all, if I ended up loving it, there were 39 more books to discover.

Okay, well, I didn't fall in love. Maybe the very first novel in the series wasn't, paradoxically, the best place to start. The Colour of Magic was certainly inventive and moderately amusing, but it seemed a little like, as the kids say, 2 dollar shop Douglas Adams. There was also a striking lack of female characters. It all seemed quite blokey? Not in an objectionable way, but I just didn't feel I was quite on the same wavelength.

So, I admire Terry Pratchett, I mourn Terry Pratchett, and I still love Good Omens, but maybe Discworld isn't quite for me.

Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone

 

This book was so much fun! Benjamin Stevenson has a background as a standup comedian, and this sharp, clever, very funny book plays with murder mystery tropes in a hugely satisfying way. Our narrator, Ernest, writes ebooks about how to write murder mysteries, presenting us at the very beginning with Ronald Knox's 10 Commandments from the Golden Age of murder writing (eg no supernatural agencies, no more than one secret room or passage, no inaccountable intuition on the part of the detective etc) -- in short, the author is obliged to play straight with the reader.

Ernest arrives at a family reunion at a ski resort, but it's a family reunion with a twist -- his brother has just been released from jail, and it's Ernest's evidence that sent him there. It turns out that all the members of the Cunningham clan have dark secrets, motives for murder and for gaining access to large sums of money, and the story takes many twists and turns (and a few tricks) before the end.

Murder mystery fans will get the most enjoyment from this playful and accomplished novel and particularly Ernest's asides to us, the readers. He alerts us at the start to the pages on which deaths will occur, or at least be described, and only plays a couple of tricks with the list... But the mysteries at the centre of Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone stand up solidly in their own right, quite apart from the games and winks to the reader, which add an extra layer of delight. Bring on the next one!

My Experimental Life

 

A. J. Jacobs has carved out a strange career for himself as an immersion journalist -- perhaps my favourite of his books was My Year of Living Biblically, which was oddly moving and spiritual as well as snortingly funny. My Experimental Life is a collection of past experiments, mostly conducted for articles for Esquire, in which Jacobs variously manages a dating profile for his babysitter (slightly less creepy than it sounds); outsources as much of his life as possible to a team of very polite, efficient workers in India; tries out Radical Honesty and Unitasking (the revolutionary notion of focusing on one activity at a time). It's all very entertaining but it lacks the deeper dimension that I enjoyed in Living Biblically.

I bought this book from Brotherhood Books and some kind previous reader had left a post-it note inside, saying This is a Good Read XY, and I certainly concur. AJ Jacobs is the kind of writer you'd love to go out for dinner with, he is wonderfully amusing and witty company. 

Possibly my favourite chapter in this book was the last ('Whipped'), in which he puts himself in the hands of his long-suffering wife, Julie. AJ's expectation was that Julie would soon tire of being the boss of everything and welcome back his old self. Didn't happen. Julie relished being in total charge and dreaming up tasks for her husband to cheerfully perform, like foot rubs, sorting out the kids' toys, and doing all the daily shitwork that usually fell to her. Best. Experiment. Ever!! Maybe I'll try it out myself.

AJ Jacobs has a new book out, The Puzzler, and I'm looking forward to reading it.

This Much is True

Just look at that gorgeous face: twinkly, cheeky, filled with character and verve. And that is just what this autobiography is like, too -- imagine having Miriam sit beside you on the couch and tell stories about her long, fascinating life. But not just stories about famous people, some lovely, some absolute shits (as Miriam herself would say without hesitation), but very personal, reflective details about her life, her family and her experiences. 

As we all know by now, Miriam (I feel I have to call her that, rather than Margolyes) is not afraid of a swear word or two, and these are sprinkled liberally throughout This Much is True, and a number of the anecdotes are frankly sexual, so prudish readers should beware. Having said that, my 86 year old mother and 80 year old mother-in-law both wolfed this book down with enormous relish, so make of that what you will.

Miriam, despite being, as she says, a short fat lesbian, has rarely been out of acting work, and became globally famous as a result of playing Professor Sprout in a couple of Harry Potter films. She began her career in the Cambridge Footlights, where the male members of the troupe treated her appallingly (the only one to apologise in later years was Tim Brooke-Taylor -- I always liked him the best). And I feel proud that this forthright, endlessly curious and adventurous woman has chosen Australia as her home. We are lucky indeed to have her.

The Bullet That Missed

 

The measure of the popularity of Richard Osman's absolutely delightful Thursday Murder Club series can be clearly seen in the ridiculous reserve list that's built up at my local library. I thought I was hard done by when I joined the list at no. 57 -- today I see that there are still 68 people waiting to read The Bullet That Missed (so I'd better hurry up and return it).

Still, it was worth the wait. The third volume in the series lives up to all my eager expectations. The plotting is as tight, the humour just as witty, the characters are all as lively and wonderful company as ever. I'm particularly fond of Elizabeth, with her mysterious dark past and her determination to keep her husband Stephen (slowly succumbing to dementia) with her for as long as she can. Flirtatious, shrewd Joyce is loads of fun too. Scholarly Ibrahim and ex-union leader Ron took more of a back seat in this novel -- I've started hearing Ron's voice as that of Alistair Campbell from The Rest Is Politics podcast, I'm not sure how either of them would feel about that!

As the kids say, no notes! I could honestly read twenty volumes of The Thursday Murder Club with total joy, but alas, apparently there is only one more volume to come. I will mourn them all and if there isn't a happy ending I will be extremely cross. If anyone dies, I will be very cross indeed.

The Year of Living Biblically

 

I picked up A. J. Jacobs' The Year of Living Biblically (original title: By the Book) from a street library, appropriately enough, outside a local church, and took it with me to read on the train between Sydney and Melbourne (11 hours of total relaxation, can't recommend it enough). A fellow passenger wearing a large crucifix caught sight of the cover and eagerly asked for a look; however, after a quick glance, she handed it back with a bemused expression, and I'm guessing it wasn't quite the book she thought it might be.

I, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed it. It falls into the category I call 'chatty memoir.' A.J. Jacobs is known for his immersive journalism; I'd previously enjoyed The Know-It-All, which chronicled his quest to read the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica. The Year of Living Biblically similarly follows Jacobs' attempt to follow every rule in the Bible. He grows his hair and his beard, refrains from touching his wife during certain times of the month, dresses in white, begins praying regularly, tries to stop lying (this is a particularly difficult injunction) and explores many more obscure Biblical rules, including animal sacrifice, scaring a pigeon off its nest and hunting for a flawless red heifer.

His conclusion is that every Bible-based religion and sect 'cherry-picks' because it's simply impossible to follow every rule, partly because they often contradict each other. A self-described secular Jew, he's also pleasantly surprised by a growing sense of spirituality, which maybe derives from a 'fake it till you make it' approach -- praying three times a day at first feels artificial and stilted, but in time he finds himself looking forward to prayer time and feeling genuine gratitude. Wearing white makes him feel 'lighter.' He begins to see the benefit of keeping the Sabbath, a day of rest, and giving to charity. And he also develops an unexpected sense of connection to his cultural heritage, and a couple of moments of transcendent joy.

A.J. Jacobs is a very funny, self-deprecating and acutely observant writer. His quest swings enjoyably between the very silly and the delightfully reflective. The Year of Living Biblically turned out to be a more thoughtful and deeper journey than I was expecting, and I'm guessing the same was true for Jacobs himself.