Scene @ The Party of Living Biblically

Towards the end of the book party for The Year of Living Biblically, A.J. Jacobs and his wife, Julie, got a little silly with the life-size cardboard cutout of Jacobs in full Biblical regalia, sporting the beard he was scripturally forbidden to shave—until the culminating scene of the video documentary that played in an infinite loop on the monitors above the bar at Genesis, across the street from Elaine’s. (Genesis! Get it?) The party was a big draw for media types, including Jacobs’ Esquire colleagues; I also spotted HuffPo editor Rachel Sklar, Daniel Radosh, NY Times contributors Alix Strauss and Dave Itzkoff, Elaine Szewczyk of Kirkus, PW‘s Karen Holt, and Joshua David Stein of Gawker, who was asking people about their least favorite commandments. (I opted to play it entirely safe and confess to working straight through the Sabbath.) I was also pleasantly surprised to run into Karen Salmansohn, who is kind enough to let me on her satellite radio talk show, Be Happy, Dammit!, from time to time, and we agreed that it’d be fun if I could come chime in when she has Jacobs on the show next month. So I’ve got that to look forward to, especially given how fun the book was to read.

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