The Guinea Pig Diaries

The title of author and occasional NPR guest A J Jacobs's new book, The Guinea Pig Diaries, really caught my attention. Buckminster Fuller often referred to himself as "Guinea Pig B," signifying that his own life was an experiment ("B" was for Bucky).

Fuller's manuscript entitled "Guinea Pig B" was the last he finished before his death. To paraphrase Bucky, the hypothesis of his life experiment was that one ordinary man could make an extraordinary contribution to humanity in a way organizations, large or small, could not.

At first glance, the experiments Jacobs has performed seem mundane and gimmicky by comparison. But the insights gleaned from those experiences, which he shares in his earlier books like The Year of Living Biblically are brilliant and valuable. One of his previous "experiments" involved reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica.

I'm looking forward to reading The Guinea Pig Diaries.