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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
At times overwhelming,but a book I would take to a deserted island. Full of details and fun to read. Like drinking through firehose.
Bill Bryson does it again! Can he just write all of the history books? I love his wit and writing style.
I both read and listened to this book, and also thoroughly enjoyed his narration style as well.
The good about this book outweighs my few complaints, so let me get them out of the way:
1. While there is an extensive bibliography and index, it would be nice if each chapter had had a reference list or its own bibliography. There's just SO MUCH information packed into this book, much of which I'd love to learn more about but I don't want to pour through the pages of references when I have no idea what chapter or parts of a chapter they refer to. Supposedly there is/was a list on his website but it doesn't seem to be there anymore. Annoying.
2. The stories told in this history are very white male-centric. He includes women wherever they seem to naturally pop up but I feel like more could have been done to make it less skewed. People of color are almost non-existent in the book and I feel like that's due to the third issue...
3. The title is "At Home: A Short History of Private Life" but would be more accurately put as "At Home in the West: A Short History of Private Life in the UK with an Emphasis on the 19th Century". There are certainly necessary detours around Europe and excursions to America, but the history never ventures outside of the northern western (and very white) hemisphere. What was going on in Africa, or Asia, or South America at this time? This was already a super long tome so including other regions of the world and the developments of their private lives would make for an even lengthier book two or three times as long, but just solve the problem by more aptly naming the book! This is primarily about British Victorian history, with a lot of time spent on the American East Coast and the Englightenment periods.
NOW ALL OF THAT ASIDE: I FREAKING LOVED THIS BOOK. It was a total blast. I loved the structure, framing history through the various rooms of a house (specifically, the old rectory that Bryson himself lives in), using the familiar home environments to set the stage for the history of hygiene (the bathroom), childhood (the nursery), clothing (the dressing room), sex and death (the bedroom), etc. I loved that each chapter, quite long and covering dozens of subtopics, was divided neatly into parts and then smaller sections so you could read just a few pages and then take a break to digest all of the fun facts and trivia that had just been presented to you. Some will find his approach too loose and disorganized, jumping from topic to topic without ever digging too deep, but this surface level history is perfect for people who just want a broad overview of a lot of different things and who will then end up on a bunch of Wikipedia rabbit holes later on.
I both read and listened to this book, and also thoroughly enjoyed his narration style as well.
The good about this book outweighs my few complaints, so let me get them out of the way:
1. While there is an extensive bibliography and index, it would be nice if each chapter had had a reference list or its own bibliography. There's just SO MUCH information packed into this book, much of which I'd love to learn more about but I don't want to pour through the pages of references when I have no idea what chapter or parts of a chapter they refer to. Supposedly there is/was a list on his website but it doesn't seem to be there anymore. Annoying.
2. The stories told in this history are very white male-centric. He includes women wherever they seem to naturally pop up but I feel like more could have been done to make it less skewed. People of color are almost non-existent in the book and I feel like that's due to the third issue...
3. The title is "At Home: A Short History of Private Life" but would be more accurately put as "At Home in the West: A Short History of Private Life in the UK with an Emphasis on the 19th Century". There are certainly necessary detours around Europe and excursions to America, but the history never ventures outside of the northern western (and very white) hemisphere. What was going on in Africa, or Asia, or South America at this time? This was already a super long tome so including other regions of the world and the developments of their private lives would make for an even lengthier book two or three times as long, but just solve the problem by more aptly naming the book! This is primarily about British Victorian history, with a lot of time spent on the American East Coast and the Englightenment periods.
NOW ALL OF THAT ASIDE: I FREAKING LOVED THIS BOOK. It was a total blast. I loved the structure, framing history through the various rooms of a house (specifically, the old rectory that Bryson himself lives in), using the familiar home environments to set the stage for the history of hygiene (the bathroom), childhood (the nursery), clothing (the dressing room), sex and death (the bedroom), etc. I loved that each chapter, quite long and covering dozens of subtopics, was divided neatly into parts and then smaller sections so you could read just a few pages and then take a break to digest all of the fun facts and trivia that had just been presented to you. Some will find his approach too loose and disorganized, jumping from topic to topic without ever digging too deep, but this surface level history is perfect for people who just want a broad overview of a lot of different things and who will then end up on a bunch of Wikipedia rabbit holes later on.
This book is pretty much everything I want to read in a non-fiction book. He discusses history, architecture, fashion, technology, basically every human activity we are capable of doing, with humor and accessibility. Somehow it manages to combine aspects of my career as an architecture conservator with aspects of my favorite hobbies while chronicling some of my favorite historical periods. If I had to commission someone to write a non-fiction book tailored to my interests, it would probably be identical to this one.
I can understand people who find this book somewhere between dull and mildly amusing. It is what it is-- a fairly random collection of interesting facts and history. What turns it into a 5-star read is the deft whimsy of Bryson's prose. It never goes where you think it's going to go, and even the most turgid of subjects suddenly becomes amusing. I read it in little bits, to stretch it out.
So far it is everything you expect from Bryson. Witty, readable, funny, smart, detailed, and overall wonderful.
Bryson turns his tangential style to a favorite theme of mine--what we take for granted as the way things are was deliberately created by 19th century Victorians based on their technology and social strictures. Bryson frames this as an exploration of his 1851 Norfolk parsonage, with side forays about the u-bend in toilets, arsenic flocked wallpaper, why cruets have three containers, limelight, the lives of servants, Capability Brown and garden design, coal tar and brick patterns.
A thoroughly enjoyable romp through the long, slow, and surprisingly elaborate history of the mundane and all the things that we in the modern world now take for granted.
I never expected that learning about topiary fashions, can openers, women's undergarments, or sewage could be so engaging, but Bill Bryson works his magic from start to finish. Roving freely though sensibly from prehistory to the second world war, he guides readers through the many rooms of his house and all the architectural, social, economical, engineering, and--in the case of many trends and inventions--personal transformations that filled them in order to bring private life to its current state.
Some of my favourite parts of the book were those about women's roles and rats. Probably in that order. That said, I could hardly read ten pages without being blown away by some trivial fact of history. I often found myself thinking, "Nobody would ever know this!" But Bill Bryson did, or at least he took the time to find out. That is, in a nutshell, what I love about his writing. He fishes the fascinating out of everything--nay, anything-- and presents it to his readers in a pure, condensed brick of awesome.
I never expected that learning about topiary fashions, can openers, women's undergarments, or sewage could be so engaging, but Bill Bryson works his magic from start to finish. Roving freely though sensibly from prehistory to the second world war, he guides readers through the many rooms of his house and all the architectural, social, economical, engineering, and--in the case of many trends and inventions--personal transformations that filled them in order to bring private life to its current state.
Some of my favourite parts of the book were those about women's roles and rats. Probably in that order. That said, I could hardly read ten pages without being blown away by some trivial fact of history. I often found myself thinking, "Nobody would ever know this!" But Bill Bryson did, or at least he took the time to find out. That is, in a nutshell, what I love about his writing. He fishes the fascinating out of everything--nay, anything-- and presents it to his readers in a pure, condensed brick of awesome.
I enjoyed At Home, but didn't love it. I'm a Bryson fan and have laughed myself sick in the past over his travel books (A Walk in the Woods particularly), but At Home is not a laugh-out-loud book. It's a collection of facts really, which does interest me. I'm always eager to know how people in the past lived, and Bryson is particularly interesting about the Dark Ages of British history, after the Romans left, when the population descended back into ignorance and frankly, dirt.
He starts with discussing the history of his house, room by room, and then builds on this by discussing what "a house" meant throughout British and pre-British history. I learnt many things I knew nothing about previously, and mostly these little facts and rambles off topic were very interesting, but very occasionally Bryson would get bogged down in something that obviously fascinated him, but which I found less than thrilling.
At Home is a book that you can dip in and out of, probably over a period of months. You don't need to read it from cover to cover in one go. Treat it like a reference book and you'll probably find much to interest and delight you.
He starts with discussing the history of his house, room by room, and then builds on this by discussing what "a house" meant throughout British and pre-British history. I learnt many things I knew nothing about previously, and mostly these little facts and rambles off topic were very interesting, but very occasionally Bryson would get bogged down in something that obviously fascinated him, but which I found less than thrilling.
At Home is a book that you can dip in and out of, probably over a period of months. You don't need to read it from cover to cover in one go. Treat it like a reference book and you'll probably find much to interest and delight you.
This was a fun, if somewhat schizophrenic book. It's very much like a sequel to his Short History of Nearly Everything. So much so, that calling it S.H.O.N.E. part 2 might have made more sense, because I'm still wondering what some of the stories had to do with homes or private life. They're interesting, and I enjoyed them, but it was very easy to forget what this book was supposed to be about.
However, I very much like Bill Bryson, so I enjoyed the book, and would recommend it to other Bryson fans.
However, I very much like Bill Bryson, so I enjoyed the book, and would recommend it to other Bryson fans.
I'm nerdy and like books about the history behind things and why things are the way they are. Bill Bryson's writing style is engaging.