'What if' questions seem to roam the mind at any given moment of the day. They seem to sprout from our minds at random intervals of time, causing us to lose a good few minuets of our day to day dreaming. These passing thoughts never seem to go anywhere for most of us, but for bestseller A.J. Jacobs, he makes a living off of these odd questions. Jacobs very first personal experiment took place way back in the '90's, at the time he had been working for Entertainment Weekly and had decided to spend twenty four hours in "the most excessive chair in the history of human seating," and write a piece on it. Needless to say, that he found his hitch and has since then written two books (The Year of Living Biblically and The Know-It-All) about his little personal experiments.
In his most recent novel, The Guinea Pig Diaries, Jacobs explores the many things are pretty common place in our society. Each chapter is made up of variety of some truly outlandish ideas, some that Jacobs thought of himself while others were tossed his way by friends, family, etc. These adventures include, Jacobs testing out the new business trend of outsourcing, by hiring two women in India to do his everyday tasks, from researching for his job at Esquire to the total mundane such as calling his parents and apologizing to his wife. He pretends to be his very attractive nanny on a dating website, in order to try and find her a boyfriend. Others consist of him doing a complete 180 of who he really is; he tries to be both a rational thinker and practice something called 'radical honesty', in which he struggles to destroy the filter between the mind and the mouth.
Following a format that is either essay style or any teenage girl's diary, creating a close connection with the writer and the reader. At times it seems to be as if he is actually sitting in front of you telling the story. In all, the book has many laugh at loud moments and many more smirk inducing sentences. It's the sort of book that gives you both the shallow pleasure of instant entertainment but can leave a last thought if you read these pages closely.
If you want to finally read something that is not a teenage vampire romance novel, The Guinea Pig Diaries could be the breath of fresh air that you have been looking for.