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Ebook683 pages10 hours
At Home: A Short History of Private Life
By Bill Bryson
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this ebook
From the author of that classic of modern science writing, A Short History of Nearly Everything, comes a work of what you might call domestic science: our homes, how they work, and the fascinating history of how they got that way.
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 found 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 demostrates, ends up in our house, in the paint and the pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture.
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 found 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 demostrates, ends up in our house, in the paint and the pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture.
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Reviews for At Home
Rating: 3.941935447507331 out of 5 stars
4/5
1,705 ratings173 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was a nice little ramble through some of the history of personal lives sparked by a ramble through an old house in England. Probably more than anyone wanted to know about the sewers and bathing frequency of previous centuries in Western Europe...
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/53.6 An entertaining collection of loosely related facts. Many moments, but lacking an over-arching whole. Worth it for Paxton or rats in teams.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5This should have been a 5 Star review of a comprehensive and enlightening history of a house bought by Bill Bryson.Instead, I am appalled by the overriding focus on the dollar sign wealth of mainly corrupt rich white men and their absurd women.There is barely any mention of America and the British empire being founded on the horrors of slavery and the blinding racism which continues into today. He mentions America's Gilded Age with NO reference to The Civil War. He praises Eli Whitney and his cotton gin with ZERO referenceto its resultant entrenchment of slavery. And so it goes throughout the book.Being kind, this is an astonishingly denier approach to ANY history.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Not my favourite Bill Bryson book. While it is informative it is lacking the usual humour, occasionally raising a smile but never laugh out loud funny. The only reason I've marked this as a keeper is that I've kept all my other Bill Bryson books so I'll keep this one as well.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lots of interesting tidbits, and an easy read. I'm not a very good non-fiction reader, but this was like reading a BBC documentary. Tons of fun.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An interesting book packed with interesting facts and stories. Bryson's device for relating all this, being a trip through his house, feels underdeveloped at times. He presents much more regarding events outside the house than within or about. He comes across as dismissive of religion while discussing Darwin and preachy about climate change, but a good read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not one of his funny travels books but a very interesting history book. Looking back on all the things which have led to what we now know as the modern home.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bill Bryson can somehow take the most mundane sounding of themes and turn it into an adventure spanning the globe with seemingly little effort. At Home: A Short History of Private Life takes readers on a magnificent journey spanning our entire existence and every facet of our lives and introduces us to people, places and events that have shaped our everyday lives whether we know it or not. Bill Bryson's great skill is in presenting facts and history that serve as a launching pad for you to think more closely about everything you encounter and to be curious about the smallest of things. Something like that cannot be praised highly enough.
It's one of those books that once you start reading it you will struggle to put it down. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. If you're at all familiar with Bill Bryson's other books then this is a must have. If you're at all interested in interesting and strange facts then you'll fall in love instantly with this book. In fact as soon as you're done reading this review I've written go out and buy this book as soon as possible! - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A light and interesting read, but if you've already read some of the source material Bryson uses (in my case Judith Flanders and Mark Girouard in particular and also Liza Picard who herself is a pop history writer) you quickly realise how much he "borrows" wholesale, even to the point of using the same quotes as the original authors. This book is pure pop history. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing but if you're looking for more substantial information about the subject matter you should go straight to the extensive and excellent bibliography at the end.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5wide ranging, hugely interesting, too long, love his sense of the ironic, absurd, unexpected or amazing trivia
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a fun, fascinating book about our modern age and how it got here - and got into our homes.Bryson uses his own English country home as a framework for exploring innovations and history - and even words - in our everyday lives. From the food in your kitchen to sex and health in your bedroom to entertaining in the drawing room, Bryson explores the innovations and innovators. The framework breaks down here and there - the attic for a look at science? - but on the whole, it's an entertaining series of anecdotes and ah-ha moments.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It's not often that i read a large non-fiction book and don't skim a little, or sometimes a lot! Not so with this fact filled, entertaining history of everyday domestic living. From the history of hygiene to fashion trends it's chock full of tantalizing trivia.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It may be a short history, but it is an intensive one. Bryson uses the rooms of his home, an old English rectory, to contemplate every imaginable aspect of the modern life - all those things we now consider indispensable. It was much denser and more varied than I had thought it would be.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bill Bryson uses his nineteenth century house, a former rectory, as a springboard for discussing all manner of tangentially-related domestic inventions and situations. He specializes in resurrecting forgotten architects and inventors, most of whom died in poverty and obscurity after designing influential houses or inventing essential household items. While some readers will admire Bryson's British wit and wide-ranging research, for me, it was all a bit too much. If I hadn't had to finish it for a book club, I probably wouldn't have made it to the end.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Another subtitle for this book could be EXCESS AND DISTRESS. A lot of the tidbits of information are jumbled together and they largely fall into the category of very rich people spending an awful lot of money on something during history, or, very disgusting or dirty or deathly habits of people through history. I really liked the beginning of the book when Bill Bryson talks about the first homes. But then he went into loops and suddenly the book was no longer well-structured and organized. It seemed that every little random fact or anecdote, however far away from the story of the homes, sneaked its way into this book. I couldn't stay focused in my listening of this book. It was this rich guy, and that poor engineer, and so and on. And despite listening to at least 80% of the book it feels I really know very little about the history of our homes and our home objects. I know more about the construction of the Eiffel tower and how to build ponds in England, and of course, the sewer system of London. It is a very strange book, and a jumble of facts. Now if you like that kind of book, great. Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods and his book about scientific history are so much better. Go for them instead.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This reminded me of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, which I really loved. I feel like I have a lot to learn from social/cultural history and was really excited about this book, but I think I should have actually read it instead of listening to the audiobook. Bryson read it himself (with his vaguely British-American ambiguous accent) and it was a little too fast for all the densely-packed anecdotes and details. I wish I could have paced my own reading, so I could go back and re-read so many little parts. There isn't really a strong narrative, just a huge collection of associated histories affiliated with the chapter's topic, and if you're not paying attention you may miss 5 tidbits.
I learned many interesting facts explaining why western culture developed into what it is today, and how it strange it has been in the past. I think this book will end up on my reading list again in the future, and I hope I can better digest and retain it. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bill Bryson's this book, unlike his other best seller "Brief History of Nearly Everything", isn't as good a page turner as I had imagined it to begin with. In fact, I dropped reading this book after reading first fifty pages, twice, before I decided to pursue with more thoroughness. With book title and cover picture, I had expected this to be history of household object but it actually turned out to history of living and living things and living activities.This subject is inherently dry, though to his credit, Bill Bryson has done a lot to make even this interesting. As his style is, he created this book as compilation of informative historical tit bits from many other books. His range of topics is impressive: food, food preparation, food preservation, cutlery, nutrition, building material, architecture, bed, washing, house pests (the idea, that someone even thought of this!), staircase, electricity, furniture, telephone, gardening, childhood, bereavement, etc. Book has some humour, but that is not running quality.I have only two complaints of the books. First, a minor, is that chapters are not indicative of content and content could be better organized. Chapters are named on rooms of house, but really talk about various things with no or little connection with the room in consideration. For example, chapter on 'Cellar' talks about history of building material and chapter on oddly named 'Plum' room talks about architecture. In fact, three chapters talk about architecture. Because of multiple threads intervening at multiple places, history goes back and forth in narrative and it becomes difficult to hold on to key dates, though probably this is okay too since we couldn't actually keep track as there are many-many events and people mentioned. Second, a major complaint, is that 80% of book is history of houses in England from 1750-1950, while 20% is same in USA. Rest of world and rest of time period is completely ignored, which was really sad actually.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fascinating read on how the Age of Discovery transformed our daily lives in unexpected ways, and about the people who transformed it. Also a reminder of how grim it used to be, even around 150 years ago.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thoroughly enjoyable.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bryson takes a look the home through the early ages. Fascinating read with many interesting facts, especially the meanings of words we use every day. One of his best works.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fascinating
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5An interesting read and fun, though frustrating from a writing standpoint. Were it not for Bill Bryson already being a brand author, this book would never have seen the light of day (in my opinion).
The structure, while engaging, is very very loose and he meanders from one trivia point to the next. It's less his touting world history as shown through his house and its rooms. It's more "Say, here's this room, and it reminds me of a story...did you know...."
Thus, this is a fun read if you only looking for cocktail party level details and trivia on history.
Still, if you're not a student of history or technology, this might serve as a great introduction. In fact, I'd recommend this as a way to get recalcitrant students interested in history by showing how seemingly disparate facts and details link more things together than they'd ever realize. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent, easy to read book, and Bryson is an excellent audiobook narrator. I haven't been particularly fond of Bryson's books before but I gave this a shot based on a friend's recommendation and it was GREAT!. Bryson gives tidbits of history about each room in a home and some of "yard" history too, and explained the meaning of the room's/yard's name. It got a little long, with extra trivia that got a little old, but that would be harsh to ding a book for doing *more* of what was great in the beginning. Even if you aren't a Bryson fan, if you lost history, and in particular cultural history (why is it called a "hall"? wow! I never knew), try this book. Downright fun to read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I was more than a little disappointed by how Anglo-American centric the history of the home apparently is, but it's still a Bill Bryson book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bill Bryson is a writer who needs no excuse to write. Entertaining as usual, Bryson tells us all about (mainly) UK social life through the last 300 years, on the pretext of describing what went on in the rooms of a former parsonage in which he lives in Norfolk. The rooms themselves barely get a look-in, but we are regaled with lots of facts and stories about the weird and wonderful people that made England what it is.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Informative as always, plus it's nice to be entertained while being informed.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5very fun, very readable, but a bit random. No question I enjoyed it, but I love random earthy/domestic history. But I was wanting a bit more depth and relevance.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This was a wonderful book to listen to on my drives to and from work. Not only was it immensely fascinating, but Bill Bryson himself was very entertaining. I highly suggest it!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I am probably missing a lot of interesting information and important historical facts about everyday living by not finishing this book, but it was just too much. I liked the book and skipped around to different parts, but couldn't read it all the way thru.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lots of good interesting tidbits. But that was really all there was; interesting tidbits