At Home : A Short History of Private Life

from DanStratton

In this latest book, Bill Bryson takes a close look at the history of something we all take for granted: our homes. When Bryson bought an old rectory for his home upon returning to England, he began to wonder why it was laid out the way it was. For example, why is the kitchen was at one end of th...

from cajela

Bill Bryson is a great raconteur, whether writing about travel, language, science, or as in this case, history. He's affable, curious, and easy to read. This one is a history of private life as framed by the device of a chapter for each room in his English country house, a former parsonage. We di...

from Turrean

Bryson is one of my favorites. His meandering, conversational is exactly how I like to learn history. Ostensibly a book of the history of the various parts of the house--living room, stairs, kitchen, and so on--Bryson weaves together changes in architecture, advances in engineering, shifts in soc...

from fyrefly98

Summary: Bill Bryson's latest book is, as the title promises, a history of the home and the contents therein. It's focused around the rectory in which he and his family currently live, and each chapter focuses on a different room, so the chapter on the dining room involves a history of eating cus...

from Othemts

Bill Bryson travels through his English home and uses it as a launching point for this history of the uses of the rooms and the types of things one finds in each spot. It's something of a cluttered attic of a book (pun intended) with little bits of cultural history, material culture, architecture...