Book #41: Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection by A. J. Jacobs

I really liked Jacobs's book where he reads the Encyclopedia Britannica all the way through. I thought it was a fascinating idea and I loved learning all of the trivia tidbits along the way, and I liked how he intertwined the narrative about he and his wife trying to get pregnant. I also enjoyed his second book about living the Bible rules literally. But I don't know, it kind of seems like it's getting old. His wife and family must be getting tired of all of these hijinks he keeps thinking up (he wrote another book where he tried a bunch of experiments on himself or something--I didn't feel like it was compelling enough). The only reason I decided to read this book was because it was about health and diet, which is something I'm vaguely interested in right now (even though we're not working that hard on becoming the healthiest eaters ever or anything).

In this book, he decides to spend two years becoming the healthiest person in the world (why does he have to qualify it by saying he wants to be the BEST? Can't he just say he wants to spend two years living as healthy as possible?) and focuses each month on improving different parts of his body and trying different diets and exercise plans. I just felt like he didn't go into enough detail about what sorts of exercise he was doing and what he was eating, and he skimmed a LOT when talking about each body part (which, of course, he had to do, but it still just felt like we were getting the most bare minimum possible and I didn't feel fulfilled with it). I feel like he should have condensed it and just written it in twelve months and not focused on random body parts like the nose or ears, which weren't very interesting to me. I liked it enough to finish it, but I wouldn't read it again. There are better books about what to eat and how to exercise and be healthy out there.