Author A.J. Jacobs recently discovered that he was related to President Barack Obama, Lady Gaga and Donald Trump!
Jacobs’ latest book, “It’s All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World’s Family Tree” was born out of this one email: “You don’t know me, but I’m your eighth cousin. And we have over 80,000 relatives of yours in our database.” The journalist and contributing writer for Esquire who is best known for writing about his lifestyle experiments shares how he chronicled his three-year journey to help build the biggest family tree in history.
The number of people who have had their DNA analyzed with home genealogy kits like AncestryDNA more than doubled during 2017 and now exceeds 12 million.
We also speak to Gael LeLamer, Book Buyer at Books & Books in Miami who shares what is on their front table and the books the changed her life.
Books in this episode:
“It’s All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World’s Family Tree” by A.J. Jacobs
The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell
The Third Hotel by Laura Van Den Berg
The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara
Paris is Burning by Lucas Hilderbrand
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo by Irving Stone
Stuart Little by E.B. White
The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference by William Macaskill
