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A review by marindamisra
At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson
4.0
I did it! I finished this book before book club tomorrow night! And man, this wasn’t just a non-fiction book, this was a GIANT non-fiction book. In the book/program I’m using to teach my daughter reading there is a picture of a book twice the size of a little girl. When we got to it I pointed to it and said “look! It’s the book Mommy’s reading!”
All that aside, Bryson’s voice was so narrative that I actually didn’t have any trouble reading. A lot of the names sort of got jumbled, but the vignette like stories of whatever it was he felt like talking about at the time made it easy for me to read.
I can’t believe how much junk was in this book. My brain feels over loaded with information, it really does feel like he just shoved them entire history of England and America into my head. It was fun, but don’t expect me to take an exam on everything.
Actually, a lot of it wasn’t fun. Other than the general conclusion that the only reason the human race didn’t die out in the face of so many freaking ways there was to die is probably because they hadn’t come up with a very effective birth control, there were sooooooo many stories about people who would make these awesome contributions to the universe only to get nothing back and try fighting in court and then die a pauper. I had a particularly bad night last week where I had eaten lots of chocolate and practically cried over the White guy who made the cement stuff. I still don’t get what it was about a person that only existed in my life for a couple paragraphs but I also couldn’t stand how helpless he was!
It was fun to see world history from the perspective of a walk through a house. For anyone who likes fun random perspectives on history (like from the view of salt) I would highly recommend this book!
All that aside, Bryson’s voice was so narrative that I actually didn’t have any trouble reading. A lot of the names sort of got jumbled, but the vignette like stories of whatever it was he felt like talking about at the time made it easy for me to read.
I can’t believe how much junk was in this book. My brain feels over loaded with information, it really does feel like he just shoved them entire history of England and America into my head. It was fun, but don’t expect me to take an exam on everything.
Actually, a lot of it wasn’t fun. Other than the general conclusion that the only reason the human race didn’t die out in the face of so many freaking ways there was to die is probably because they hadn’t come up with a very effective birth control, there were sooooooo many stories about people who would make these awesome contributions to the universe only to get nothing back and try fighting in court and then die a pauper. I had a particularly bad night last week where I had eaten lots of chocolate and practically cried over the White guy who made the cement stuff. I still don’t get what it was about a person that only existed in my life for a couple paragraphs but I also couldn’t stand how helpless he was!
It was fun to see world history from the perspective of a walk through a house. For anyone who likes fun random perspectives on history (like from the view of salt) I would highly recommend this book!