A. J. Jacobs: the know-it-all’s guide to weeding out a library

When we rang A. J. Jacobs’ bell, we weren’t sure what we would find. After all, this was the guy who had, at different times, impersonated a beautiful woman in cyberspace, grown a beard of biblical dimensions to see how Moses lived and outsourced his life to an assistant in Bangalore. Like a method actor, A. J. fully immerses himself in his research. We hardly expected him to greet us as himself, wearing jeans and a button-down (what, no period costume?)  and offer us food and drink.

A. J. explained that he had recently thinned out his shelves to make room for more books. We marveled at his pragmatic approach to his library. “I’ve learned to let go of books,” he said. “I think the ideas contained in books are irreplaceable, but I’m not obsessed with the actual books.” Some of his favorite titles, such as Tom Wolfe’s The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, had been 86′ed. New additions to his collection included The Blue Zones, which he’s reading as part of his next book (and life experiment) on becoming the healthiest person alive.

While books come and go in A. J.’s life, facts remain his ultimate conquest. He admits that he’s probably the last person in the world to own a complete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica. His love of trivia isn’t completely innocent, however, as his story about his nemesis brother-in-law reveals. Trivia is A. J.’s secret weapon, and he likes to be fast on the draw. “Like hunters have a bunch of heads on their den wall, I like having all these strange facts that I can reference.”