At Home (Illustrated Edition): A short history of private life
As seen:
By Bill Bryson
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1 review
What does history really consist of? Centuries of people quietly going about their daily business – sleeping, eating, having sex, endeavouring to get comfortable. And where did all these normal activities take place? At home.
This was the thought that inspired Bill Bryson to start a journey around the rooms of his own house, an 1851 Norfolk rectory, to consider how the ordinary things in life came to be.
And what he discovered are surprising connections to anything from the Crystal Palace to the Eiffel Tower, from scurvy to body-snatching, from bedbugs to the Industrial Revolution, and just about everything else that has ever happened, resulting in one of the most entertaining and illuminating books ever written about the history of the way we live, enhanced in this new edition by hundreds of stunning photographs and illustrations.
Reviews
cordula.vonderassen@hackney.gov.uk
In "At Home", Bill Bryson takes his readers on a tour of his Victorian, ex-vicarage, Norfolk home. Taking them from room to room, readers learned about the history of the specific room they found themselves in, and the everyday items within it. The reading of any random chapter revealed the depth and width of research that the author had undertaken, which he offered readers in a clear, often amusing and never patronising way: Bill Bryson wears his knowledge lightly, but transmits it in an entertaining style.
Particularly enjoyed was the way that the author seemed to, in an Eddie Izzard manner, “wander off-theme”. In the chapter headed The Passage, one learned that by “the early twentieth century, 10 per cent of all British aristocrat marriages were to (wealthy) Americans”. Why should that snippet of information be there? There was a link and it was fun following it as it was learning the origins of certain words; read this book and one will learn, amongst a myriad of things, the origin of "curfew" (from "couvre-feu", covering up the fire for the night).
The reading group all agreed that this book was an interesting, informative and well written read. One member found the book fascinating and insightful on life and the way people lived it. Everyone enjoyed the book, even if a few found it rather long. This particular reader, however, could have had a larger helping of the book, so pleasurable and erudite did she find it.
By Jasmina
