At Home: A Short History of Private Life |  | Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
List Price: $28.95
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as of 9/5/2010 15:34 CDT details
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Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 734
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 512
Number Of Items: 1
ISBN: 0767919386
Dewey Decimal Number: 390
EAN: 9780767919388
ASIN: 0767919386
Publication Date: October 5, 2010 (In 30 Days)
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Availability: Not yet published
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Product Description
From one of the most beloved authors of our time—more than six million copies of his books have been sold in this country alone—a fascinating excursion into the history behind the place we call home.
“Houses aren’t refuges from history. They are where history ends up.”
Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.” The bathroom provides the occasion for a history of hygiene; the bedroom, sex, death, and sleep; the kitchen, nutrition and the spice trade; and so on, as Bryson shows how each has figured in the evolution of private life. Whatever happens in the world, he demonstrates, ends up in our house, in the paint and the pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture.
Bill Bryson has one of the liveliest, most inquisitive minds on the planet, and he is a master at turning the seemingly isolated or mundane fact into an occasion for the most diverting exposition imaginable. His wit and sheer prose fluency make At Home one of the most entertaining books ever written about private life.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
 History as it should be taught July 26, 2010
Donna
16 out of 16 found this review helpful
This book changed my world. Well, at least my perception of my world.
At Home is a fascinating account of how we got where we are today, domestically speaking. I read it whist living in a non-western, non-English speaking country and it illuminated for me the historical reasons behind some of the assumptions I make which are at odds with the society I'm currently living in, like why I think my dining room should be bigger than the one in my rented house is. Sure, knowing dates of major battles is important, but this book is history as it was meant to be: relevant, enlightening, and funny.
Wonderfully eccentric September 4, 2010
Jonathan A. Turner (Nashua, NH United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If this book were a house, it would be one of those charmingly odd edifices put up by a single builder with a determinedly eccentric vision. The floor plan might be odd, and it might be a little hard to say exactly what architectural style it is, and on occasion you might find a gable where you'd expected a chimney. But you'd love it anyway.
_At Home_ doesn't really have a theme, or an argument to advance. Rather, it's an interwoven fabric of anecdotes, historical tidbits, excursions, diversions, and useless but fascinating facts. Its organization (as a tour of the author's house) is just enough to give it structure and keep it from being a mere collection of curios. To pull this off requires absolutely top-notch writing skills--and Bryson has them.
Still, this isn't a book to read in search of a cohesive understanding of much of anything. Rather, it's a book to be rambled through, eying the delightful scenery. (There's a more-than-passing resemblance to James Burke's _Connections_ series.) For example, the chapter on "The Passage" touches on the Eiffel Tower, the Vanderbilts, Thomas Edison's mania for concrete houses, the telephone, and the biggest mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. I'm not sure how much information any given reader will retain, but with writing this good, who cares?
This is a big, sweeping story. It combines very broad historical scope with closely-observed minute detail. I did spot one or two places where Bryson's facts are incomplete or open to dispute. (To take a trivial example, the relationship among bushels, quarts, and liters is mis-stated.) I'm happy to let them go as quibbles; in general, Bryson is pretty good at overturning anecdotal history and providing a good, well-sourced, thoughtful synthesis.
So don't look for a thesis, and don't approach _At Home_ as a textbook. Its joys are those of breadth, not depth. Step right in. Wander around. Make yourself comfortable. You might even get a little lost, but you won't mind.
Vintage Bryson August 26, 2010
D. Zarzyckd (Cleveland, Ohio)
I got this book in the British version from the UK Amazon a few weeks ago and could not wait to get my hands on it. It is a typical Bill Bryson book - full of digressions and stories of eccentric Englishmen, thigh slappingly funny, educational and optimistic. Bryson goes through his house room by room and writes about the history of its function and the technology used within.
I read it in a few days (and I had to slow myself down to prolong the pleasure) and loaned it to my brother in law who is also a Bill Bryson fan and who call me now from California to tell me how much he enjoys it. In his opinion, this is the best Bryson work ever. I think for me "The Short History of Nearly Everything" is a little more to me liking but read this book and find out for yourself.
Bill Bryson does it again August 26, 2010
Clementine Dare (Gilbert, Arizona, USA)
My father in law returned from a recent vacation and was talking about touring a restored Ukranian settlement in Canada. He marveled about the size/construction of the sod houses and it spurred stories about his own house growing up, which only had four rooms. He mentioned that in the old country houses did not have windows because there was a tax on windows, how only rich people had wooden ceilings and floors and how they bathed in a galvanized metal tub outside, in the summer they let the sun warm the water. He jokingly called it "solar energy".
Last night I picked up Bill Bryson's book which aims to recapture the last 150 years of human domesticity and read the same details about window taxes and plumbing. I had a hard time giving the book to my father in law to finish, I was enjoying it so much but once he started it he did not want to give it back. He's good at returning books, so I let him have it.
Bill Bryson is a favorite author of mine, two of his most popular books are "A Walk in the Woods" and "A Short History of Nearly Everything". My husband knows nearly everything and he said that Bill Bryson was spot on, so I have learned to trust him as a good go to guy for an accessible and humorous non fiction slant on things.
The book opens with an anecdote about the Great Explosition of 1850 in London, England. After watching Victoria and Albert I became interested in that period of history and read several books about. Bryson's description of the spectacular Crystal Palace and the gardener Joseph Paxton's role in creating it is the best I have read. Bryson is like the teacher you wish you had whose warmth, enthusiasm and curiousity helps you fall in love with history too. This is the most enthusiastic review I have written in a long. This is the kind of book you can pick up for your bookworm or history loving friend around the holidays and they will love it. I plan to buy a copy for my mother. Two thumbs way up!
Further proof that Bill Bryson can interest us in ANYTHING August 30, 2010
Corinne H. Smith (Athol, MA USA)
He can even get Americans to sit down and read the dusty details of British history!
Popular author Bill Bryson sets out to explore the origins of his abode in England: a former rectory built in 1851 by the Reverend Thomas Marsham (1822-1905). But his scrutiny goes far beyond that scope when he decides to dig deeper and learn the cultural histories of every room in the house. He devotes a chapter each to the hall, the kitchen, the scullery and larder, the drawing room, the dining room, the cellar, the passage, the study, the garden, the plum room, the stairs, the bedroom, the bathroom, the dressing room, the nursery, and the attic. Early on he even addresses "the fusebox" and the introduction of electricity into human life and culture. The result is a comprehensive study of how our homes became what they are today: and by extension, how WE became who we are today.
By now, most readers should know that Bryson is an American who lives (or has lived) in England and who therefore has a foot in each camp. You shouldn't be surprised by his strong continuing interest in history and in language. And you shouldn't be too surprised that many of our own living arrangements in America have their roots in Europe and, more specifically, in the British Isles. Therefore, much of the information conveyed here comes from British sources and from incidents that occurred somewhere in the British empire. Oh, there are a few dips into the American historical files as well, with notes about the Boston Tea Party, the Erie Canal, Monticello, Mount Vernon, Thomas Edison's light bulb, Alexander Graham Bell's telephone, and other U.S. events and inventions. And while we can relate to many of these developments in housing as we sit on this side of the Pond, the overall flavor here is an English one. This is as it should be, since the Bryson house sits on British soil. If you don't like your prose peppered with the antics of queens and kings and dukes and ladies, then don't even open this volume.
Anglophiles will absorb these pages. Fence-sitters might be challenged to find the connections between Bryson's seemingly rambling trajectories and the room that he's supposed to be addressing in each chapter. But anyone who chooses to stay the course here will learn quite a few tidbits to drop into casual conversation at dinner parties or at staff meetings. You might begin to walk around your own space and view it with a different or more critical eye. "At Home" is a worthwhile and often fascinating read. It is not a book that can be zipped through quickly. Readers will need time to savor the narrative and to reflect upon the information that Bryson supplies and suggests. And afterward, they'll be sure to hold tightly onto the handrail as they go downstairs and throw their bedsheets into the washer.
The advance reading copy did not include any architectural renderings or photographs. There is the hint that at the very least, the former will be included in the final edition of the book. Illustrations would certainly be helpful in considering this very visual subject matter.
While I enjoyed reading this book, I do take one tiny offense. Early on, Bryson mentions that Robert Marsham, the rector's great-grandfather, was interested in phenology, and that his seasonal observations of Nature are still used as benchmarks for dates of flowers blooming and birds arriving on the scene. While that might well be true in England, over here people are more apt to refer to the journals of one Henry David Thoreau for that kind of information. Sorry, Bill. Sometimes an American Transcendentalist can do the job better.
To those who would prefer to read an American house history, I highly recommend Red House: Being a Mostly Accurate Account of New England's Oldest Continuously Lived-in House by Sarah Messer. That historic dwelling beats Bryson's by two centuries.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
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