Hardcover, 497 pages
English language
Published Jan. 6, 2010 by Doubleday.
“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 …
“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. (front flap)
A bit too rambling--and this said as a fan of Bryson.
Too many stories with which I was already fairly familiar.
3/5 at best: a collection of anecdotes and trivia loosely assembled around the (mostly) history of the western household culture — (not) a bit too loosely for my taste. also, did i really need that chapter on child mortality?
I loved this book. But be forewarned - it is nothing but a long stream of factoids. Hundreds of pages of useless trivia. I just happen to love useless trivia.
Where Bryson's "Short History of Nearly Everything" leads you through all the big questions about the origins of our worlds (and the people who made the discoveries), this book tries to examine the history of every day life. It's stuffed full of fantastic anecdotes, interesting fun facts and a perspective of history that's new to most of us. More than anything, it highlights how many people has played a big part in shaping our world, and that small inventions and ideas can have big consqeunces in the life of many.
What Bill Bryson did really well in "Short History..." was to tie together stories that on the surface are not that related, and give the a flow that was very easy to follow as a reader. Bryson is a great story teller. In this book the gimmick is that he uses his own house as the basis and structure of …
Where Bryson's "Short History of Nearly Everything" leads you through all the big questions about the origins of our worlds (and the people who made the discoveries), this book tries to examine the history of every day life. It's stuffed full of fantastic anecdotes, interesting fun facts and a perspective of history that's new to most of us. More than anything, it highlights how many people has played a big part in shaping our world, and that small inventions and ideas can have big consqeunces in the life of many.
What Bill Bryson did really well in "Short History..." was to tie together stories that on the surface are not that related, and give the a flow that was very easy to follow as a reader. Bryson is a great story teller. In this book the gimmick is that he uses his own house as the basis and structure of the book. This does not really work, and I feel that it to some degree ruined the flow of the book. There's also several sections where I found myself losing interest in the stories told. This is not suprising in such a big book with so many different stories, but it never happened in "Short History...". Perhaps it's easier to grab my attention with the people who discovered how the world worked, than the people who discovered how asymmetrical architecture should work?
And as always with these kind of books: I wish I remembered even a percent of what I read. It's super interesting, but nothing sticks. Oh well.
Absolutely excellent. Filled to bursting with interesting facts, and with just enough narrative tone to make these otherwise unrelated facts hang together, though constraining the chapters to the various rooms of the house proved almost too restrictive a device for a book so dense with trivia.
The audio version gets 5 stars, the ebook gets 4. I can't explain the discrepancy, but I stand by it. (I listened to the audiobook in 2012 and 2013 and read the ebook in 2017.)
A superb book by Bryson. Not one of his 'roll on the floor' ones, but a great idea that is executed with real panache. So much learned in such an entertaining way. Easily could be reread many times over. A simple idea and such a clever way to hang together so much disparate material.
Enormous fun! All sort of random facts about history and society, (tenuously) tied together by links to an old rectory in England. Wallpaper, paint, state of medical treatment, drains -- you name it!
A grand-scale, rambling tour. At times it's hard to see where he's going, but every detail counts ... and is often revisited. Bryson's writing style is as always intimate and delightful.
(From my blog Near Earth Object)
About halfway through Bill Bryson’s At Home: A Short History of Private Life, one can’t help but come to a couple of stark conclusions. One, that most of humanity’s domestic life, for the vast majority of time time we had domestic lives, was full of suffering and misery the likes of which we moderns can barely imagine. Two, that the tiny percentage of the species blessed with an overabundance of money and/or status have not been content to simply live well, but have wasted vast economic resources to spoil and aggrandize themselves in ways that would make Ozymandias cringe.
Bryson is a wonderful writer, and his storytelling is as usual conversational while remaining high-minded, as he clearly glories in his research and discoveries while allowing the space for the reader to catch up to him.
But his subject, I suppose, necessitated the …
(From my blog Near Earth Object)
About halfway through Bill Bryson’s At Home: A Short History of Private Life, one can’t help but come to a couple of stark conclusions. One, that most of humanity’s domestic life, for the vast majority of time time we had domestic lives, was full of suffering and misery the likes of which we moderns can barely imagine. Two, that the tiny percentage of the species blessed with an overabundance of money and/or status have not been content to simply live well, but have wasted vast economic resources to spoil and aggrandize themselves in ways that would make Ozymandias cringe.
Bryson is a wonderful writer, and his storytelling is as usual conversational while remaining high-minded, as he clearly glories in his research and discoveries while allowing the space for the reader to catch up to him.
But his subject, I suppose, necessitated the retelling of these two central themes I’ve mentioned: The misery of the underclasses (disease, vermin, cold, being overwhelmed by feces, etc.) and the unabated vanity of the rich (who also, it should be noticed, were subject to disease and other unpleasantness, but often in Bryson’s telling faced ruin by their own ignorance or hubris). But if it is necessary, it is also relentless. Story after story, anecdote after anecdote is a tail that either makes one feel deep pity for those who are crushed under the weight of their poverty or nausea over the largess of the aristocracy. In between are the triumphs, the brilliant ideas, the advances, but it becomes almost exhausting when one contemplates the mayhem from which the victories emerge.
Here’s a good summation from the book, a quote from Edmond Halley (of comet fame), that I feel gets to the heart of the long crawl of human domesticity — human daily life — over the centuries.
How unjustly we repine at the shortness of our Lives and think our selves wronged if we attain not Old Age; where it appears hereby, that the one half of those that are born are dead in Seventeen years.… [So] instead of murmuring at what we call an untimely Death, we ought with Patience and unconcern to submit to that Dissolution which is the necessary Condition of our perishable Materials.
Bryson is always fun to read. I expect there aren’t too many other people who can give you a tour of their home and in the process somehow discuss the Great Exhibition of 1851, the building of the Eiffel Tower, and the history of concrete. Bryson offers interesting answers to questions most people would never think to ask, and he writes well.
One of Bryson's educational essays, this is cleverly written and fascinating. I wanted to tell other people about what I'd discovered in this book, and enjoyed it very much. You might like it as a 'dipping into' book, since there's no particular reason to read it all in one go; and you're probably likely to enjoy it more as a result. V good.
Bryson moved into an old English parsonage and as he was exploring some interesting areas (why is there a door in the attic that leads to nowhere?) he decided to do some research into the history of "home" as we in the modern world understand it. It was really fascinating and I couldn't put it down. Sometimes he got a bit repetitive, and sometimes I lost his train of thought...it was hard to grasp the connection between what he was writing and the section of the house in which he started that specific chapter. That might not make sense, but read it and I think you'll know what I mean. However, Bryson is one of my favs and I love it when he rambles, so even if I got lost it was still pleasurable. Great read.
Despite the amount of information, more than someone can actually process, this is a fascinating and enjoyable book. Bill Bryson did a prodigious amount of research on the history of nearly everything from architecture to epidemics and toilets to crinolines and wigs.
We discover that there is a lot of history, excitement, even danger in the rooms and the corners of our houses and the domestic life is certainly more spicy, interesting and complicated than we thought. Bill Bryson’s irresistible wit and humour makes it an entertaining reading.
By the way did you know that Thomas Jefferson, as well as being the author of the Declaration of Independence, was also the father of the American French fry.
And, that… rats have a lot of sex - up to twenty times a day and if a male rat can’t find a female, he will willingly - even happily - find relief …
Despite the amount of information, more than someone can actually process, this is a fascinating and enjoyable book. Bill Bryson did a prodigious amount of research on the history of nearly everything from architecture to epidemics and toilets to crinolines and wigs.
We discover that there is a lot of history, excitement, even danger in the rooms and the corners of our houses and the domestic life is certainly more spicy, interesting and complicated than we thought. Bill Bryson’s irresistible wit and humour makes it an entertaining reading.
By the way did you know that Thomas Jefferson, as well as being the author of the Declaration of Independence, was also the father of the American French fry.
And, that… rats have a lot of sex - up to twenty times a day and if a male rat can’t find a female, he will willingly - even happily - find relief in a male.
