JGSC Book Club: It's All Relative: Up and Down the World's Family Tree by A.J. Jacobs

When:

Wednesday, July 23, 2025, 7:00pm ET

Where:

Zoom

Join us for a moderated discussion of It's All Relative: Up and Down the World's Family Tree by A.J. Jacobs

About the Group:

We read books that bring Jewish genealogy to life, including memoirs that explore generations of a family's history, histories that explore Jewish families and make use of genealogical research, and other titles that explore the role of genealogy in our lives.

Book Synopsis:

A.J. Jacobs has received some strange emails over the years, but this note was perhaps the strangest: “You don’t know me, but I’m your eighth cousin. And we have over 80,000 relatives of yours in our database.”

That’s enough family members to fill Madison Square Garden four times over. Who are these people, A.J. wondered, and how do I find them? So began Jacobs’s three-year adventure to help build the biggest family tree in history. In It’s All Relative, he “muses on the nature of family and the interconnectedness of humanity in this entertaining introduction to the world of genealogy” (Publishers Weekly).

Jacobs’s journey would take him to all seven continents. He drank beer with a US president, sung with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and unearthed genetic links to Hollywood actresses and real-life scoundrels. After all, we can choose our friends, but not our family.

“Whether he’s posing as a celebrity, outsourcing his chores, or adhering strictly to the Bible, we love reading about the wacky lifestyle experiments of author A.J. Jacobs” (Entertainment Weekly). Now Jacobs upends, in ways both meaningful and hilarious, our understanding of genetics and genealogy, tradition and tribalism, identity and connection. “Whimsical but also full of solid journalism and eye-opening revelations about the history of humanity, It’s All Relative is a real treat” (Booklist, starred review).

Author:

A.J. Jacobs is an author, journalist, lecturer and human guinea pig. He has written four New York Times bestsellers that combine memoir, science, humor and a dash of self-help. Among his books are The Know-It-All, The Year of Living Biblically, and Thanks a Thousand, in which he travels the globe to thank everyone who had even the slightest role in making his morning cup of coffee. He is a contributor to NPR, The New York Times, and Esquire, among others. He has given several TED talks, including ones about living biblically, creating a one-world family, and living healthily that have amassed over 10 million views.

Registration:

Registration is open only to JGSC members and is limited to 10 participants.  There will be a waiting list. Registration closes on Tuesday, July 22, at which point participants will receive a Zoom link.

Contact:

Email Jane Rothstein at president@jgscleveland.org with any questions.