Reveille and Jack Black’s Electric Dynamite Prods. have optioned the TV rights to journalist/author A.J. Jacobs’ best-selling non-fiction book My Life As An Experiment for a potential half-hour comedy series. Esquire Editor-at-Large Jacobs is known for immersing himself in a self-improvement project and then writing about it. Reveille’s EVP scripted TV Carolyn Bernstein called the stories “tailor-made for television,” noting that they “chronicle A.J.’s real-life adventures in immersion journalism and their unexpected comedic impact on his domestic life.” Search is underway for a writer to adapt the book.
Jacket (from book):
One man. Ten extraordinary quests.
Bestselling author and human guinea pig A. J. Jacobs puts his life to the test and reports on the surprising and entertaining results. He goes undercover as a woman, lives by George Washington’s moral code, and impersonates a movie star. He practices “radical honesty,” brushes his teeth with the world’s most rational toothpaste, and outsources every part of his life to India—including reading bedtime stories to his kids.
Filled with humor and wisdom, My Life as an Experiment will immerse you in eye-opening situations and change the way you think about the big issues of our time—from love and work to national politics and breakfast cereal.
You can read the introduction here:
http://www.ajjacobs.com/books/my_life_as_an_experiment.asp?id=excerpt
Critics say (of the book):
“Jacobs…could be the funniest nonfiction writer this side of Bill Bryson…The experiments themselves are fascinating and lead to genuinely surprising conclusions…and Jacobs’ storytelling is lighthearted and frequently laugh-out-loud funny…There aren’t a lot of nonfiction books you want to read over and over, but this is certainly one of them.” – Booklist, starred review
“Jacobs continues his unique brand of immersion journalism…[and] his style is crisp and often laugh-out-loud funny….[An] endearing and nimble look at how pursuing absurd extremes can illuminate the more mundane aspects of contemporary existence.” – Kirkus reviews
“Jacobs, a kind of latter-day George Plimpton, tests…our funny bones once again with his smart-aleck, off-the-wall and uproarious experiments in living.” – Publishers Weekly
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