Thanks A Thousand: A Gratitude Journey

By A. J. Jacobs

Bestselling author A.J. Jacobs has undergone a life-changing and entertaining journey.  The idea is deceptively simple: he takes one of our greatest pleasures- our morning cup of coffee - and tries to thank every single person involved in making it, from the barista to the coffee farmer and all those in between.  This turns out to be a stunningly large number, including artists, chemists, presidents, mechanics, biologists, miners, smugglers and goatherds.  Hundreds of people.  Thousands. Maybe more.
 
Through this seemingly straightforward quest, Jacobs reveals inspiring truths. The book is a reminder of the amazing interconnectedness of our world. It shows us how much we take for granted.  It teaches us how gratitude can make our lives happier, kinder and more impactful.  And it will inspire readers to follow their own "Gratitude Trails."
 
Gratitude was not an emotion that came easily to Jacobs.  His innate disposition is more Larry David than Tom Hanks. But he knew that gratitude is perhaps the most important key to human happiness, the chief of all virtues, as Cicero said.  Science has shown gratitude’s benefits are legion: it helps you sleep, improves your diet, and makes you more likely to recover from illnesses.
 
Jacobs wanted to inspire his kids to embrace gratitude, so he decided to commit himself to a radical experiment.  Over the course of several months, Jacobs went on a journey that took him across continents and up and down the social ladder.  He experienced joy, wonder, guilt and depression. He met great characters.  He learned just how far-flung are those involved – from the Minnesota miners who get the iron that makes the steel that makes the coffee roasters, to the Madison Avenue marketers who captured his wandering attention for a moment.  His adventures include:
A trip to a remote farm in Colombia, where he experienced first-hand how challenging it is to pick the coffee fruits.
Several days with a coffee taster who taught Jacobs the secrets of the trade, and schooled him in the vocabulary that rivals wine sommeliers. (The taster doesn’t just detect notes of apple in his coffee. He says what kind of apple -- Gala? Honeycrisp?)
Because coffee is 98.4 percent water, Jacobs visited the vast upstate reservoirs that supply New York City, and thanked the folks whose homes were destroyed to make way for the lakes.
Jacobs devotes a chapter on the cup-makers, including the rags-to-riches inventor of the “Java Jacket,” that underappreciated cardboard ring you slip over your cup. It has saved millions of fingers and thumbs from burning discomfort, but we never give it a second thought.
The food safety inspectors, who keep our coffee free from an alarming number of diseases and creatures.
 
Along with entertaining tales, the book is filled with wonderful insights and useful tips.  Readers learn how to focus on the hundreds of things that go right every day instead of the handful that go wrong. They read about our culture’s dangerous overemphasis on individuals instead of teams. They learn the art of “savouring meditation”.  They learn the pros and cons of globalism.  They learn to appreciate the astounding work it takes to create even the most simple items in our lives.  There’s even
a gratitude hack to help them fall asleep.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Release date: Nov 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781471156069

A. J. Jacobs

A.J. Jacobs is the author of Thanks a Thousand, It’s All Relative, Drop Dead Healthy, and the New York Times bestsellers The Know-It-All, The Year of Living Biblically, and My Life as an Experiment. He is a contributor to NPR, and has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Entertainment Weekly. He lives in New York City with his wife and kids. Visit him at AJJacobs.com and follow him on Twitter @ajjacobs.

Reviews for Thanks A Thousand

[jasoncomely-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Perhaps A.J. Jacobs misread "gratitude journal" (a common thing nowadays) as "gratitude journey". Thus the idea for this book was born - and a pretty good book at that.

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

3.5 An expanded version of a TED talk given by this author. Was attracted to it for two reasons. I have decided I the coming year to try to focus more on things on the outside instead of always looking inward. This is sometimes hard to do when one has various medical issues and chronic pain. I want to try focusing on what I do have as opposed to what I don't. We will see how that goes, but I'm hopeful. The second reason is simply that I'm a coffee addict and I was curious how far the author would take this.I enjoyed the way this was written for the most part. Loved the self deprecating humor, his flashes of intuition, and many of his examples. I had no idea how many people it took down the line for me to get a cup of coffee. He listed them, and showed their illustrated faces. Amazing! Don't think I'll look at an item I use daily without realizing all the effort it took for it to come into my hands. At least short term, lol! He did mention one thing that I realized myself. How thank you has just become something to say to be polite, rote. Saying your grateful is more expressive and thought provoking. Though some people might look at you funny if you tell the bigger at your grocery that you are deeply grateful. So all in all, though it did drag in a few places, this was an interesting book.

[bogopea · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A great end of year read to start the new year remembering to be grateful for the large and small. Jacobs spent a year thanking everyone involved in getting his morning coffee to him, from the grower to the transporter to the barrista and everyone in between. Very enjoyable, quick read.

[whitreidtan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A.J. Jacobs describes himself as "more Larry David than Tom Hanks" and he wanted to find a way to be less annoyed and more grateful, leading to the idea of this participatory memoir. It's an expanded version of his TED talk which readers might have seen. I too find I am annoyed a lot of the time and once I am annoyed, it's harder and harder to stop being annoyed by even the smallest of things, to just be happy with life. So I thought that following Jacobs on his "Gratitude Journey" to thank all the people who make his morning coffee, a necessity for so many people, possible would make Thanks a Thousand the perfect book to ring in my new year of reading.It is easy to be annoyed or angry over something. It is much harder to be grateful. And it might be hardest of all to be grateful for things we take for granted. It is this that drives Jacobs' interest in his quest. He wants to thank everyone for their contributions, from the big and obvious to the small and seemingly insignificant as he traces the origin of his coffee and all the things that allow it to journey from the coffee bean farmers to his own mouth. Jacobs manages to connect a whole host of people who we might not otherwise consider here, highlighting the absolute interconnectedness of all the businesses and people on the planet. In fact, he went so far down the rabbit hole looking into all the industries involved in a simple cup of coffee (he makes no mention of adding milk or sugar but that would just expand the scope exponentially I imagine) that he has to consciously restrict himself to thanking only 1000 people (more or less). His investigation into each aspect is by necessity not terribly in depth but it is enough for the layperson to understand the gist and to continue to be fascinated by all the places that Jacobs is taking them. The information made me appreciate all of the moving parts that absolutely anything takes (especially the usually overlooked bits) but the push to recognize people's contributions and the gratitude those contributions inspired were definitely thought provoking. Even as a non-coffee drinker, I found this to be a quick and fascinating read, and one with which I am happy to have started my year.

[squeakychu · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Books by A.J. Jacobs are fun to read and this book was no exception. In this book, Jacobs thanks a thousand people who are responsible for his morning cup of coffee. I'm glad he chose coffee because that was a subject to which I can well relate as I am a "coffee snob". I never stopped to realize the number of people who are responsible for the coffee I drink at least every morning, but in addition the topic of gratitude is on my mind a lot as I worry about the political situation in my country and worry about people who seem to completely lack any sense of gratitude. Hence this little book was very welcome in my reading list this month. At the end of this book is a list of the people whom the author thanks. I felt the most debt of gratitude to the farmers who actually raise the coffee beans, harvest them and send them to market. I also feel a great debt of gratitude to people within organizations who work for Fair trade practices and sustainable environmental practices. I think it's good to not take what we have for granted and this book is but a small example of a way to do just that.