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michaelontheplanet 's review for:
At Home: A Short History of Private Life
by Bill Bryson
House style: Bill Bryson writes amusingly and fluidly about domesticia, based loosely on his own home (a former rectory in Norfolk) but expanding voluminously on the various rooms - hall, study, pantry etc - to create a history of the house and person from earliest times. It’s comprehensive, informative and fun.
Bryson has his demographic - Radio Times-reading, Prosecco-swilling, National Trust-joining, Waitrose-shopping Middle Englanders (so I should be target market really) and his schtick - a light touch with facts (cavalier at times), and a fondness for lists that makes the reader reflect he’d not do badly on Just A Minute. Not that this is bad, in fact at his best he’s very funny and informative indeed although stretched over 600 pages you do need to like his style to pull through. His audiences flock to his outsider’s take on We British (aren’t they a funny lot rather than anything too critical). I last read him about 20 years ago: having enjoyed Notes From A Small Island I somewhat overdosed on the BB œuvre, and took to fasting thereafter. You see, the archness is catching.
If you can forgive him a little literary mansplaining, At Home is a specimen work - there’s an exhaustiveness to its scope and it’s jam-packed with detail, wit and characters. Dulce domum indeed.
Bryson has his demographic - Radio Times-reading, Prosecco-swilling, National Trust-joining, Waitrose-shopping Middle Englanders (so I should be target market really) and his schtick - a light touch with facts (cavalier at times), and a fondness for lists that makes the reader reflect he’d not do badly on Just A Minute. Not that this is bad, in fact at his best he’s very funny and informative indeed although stretched over 600 pages you do need to like his style to pull through. His audiences flock to his outsider’s take on We British (aren’t they a funny lot rather than anything too critical). I last read him about 20 years ago: having enjoyed Notes From A Small Island I somewhat overdosed on the BB œuvre, and took to fasting thereafter. You see, the archness is catching.
If you can forgive him a little literary mansplaining, At Home is a specimen work - there’s an exhaustiveness to its scope and it’s jam-packed with detail, wit and characters. Dulce domum indeed.