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cade 's review for:
At Home: A Short History of Private Life
by Bill Bryson
This book is very easy and pretty entertaining to read. It is basically trivia in paragraph format. It is not really a history of the home or of private life. It is really just a collection of interesting facts about the history of things than can somehow be related to features of or objects in a home. However, the facts are indeed mostly interesting. Almost all of them focus on the history of the 19th century with some brief forays into the early 20th century.
I have two complaints. One is that the book sometimes lacks momentum to keep you really motivated to keep turning its many pages. Without a true plot or even a thesis to really unify and drive the book, it falls far short of ever becoming a page turner. However, it was entertaining enough that I never dreaded picking it up again. I just had to "push through" a few parts.
The other problem is that Bryson's prosy, conversational style feels a little inexact at times. This is a non-fiction book, but there are several places where it feels like he is taking just a hair of poetic license that overstate facts. One small example is that he claims colonial America lacked a domestic supply of building materials except wood. He cites the fact that George Washington had to order flagstones from England. While it may be true that George Washington ordered his flagstones from England, that does not necessarily imply that there were no stones suitable to this purpose in America as the author implies. In fact, Washington ordered essentially everything from England because it was required by the fashion of his society (as the author actually explicitly discusses this in another part of the book). Also, whether or not a flagstone quarry existed in America at the time is a far cry from demonstrating whether or not America had an ample supply of stone suitable for building. Maybe others would think that I am reading too much into this particular illustration, and I admit I may be. However, I had a suspicious sense that Bryson was overstating the facts in a few places through the book. That is a shame because in many areas with which I was independently familiar with the facts, he does them justice, but it only takes a few questionable assertions to cast doubt on all of them.
I have two complaints. One is that the book sometimes lacks momentum to keep you really motivated to keep turning its many pages. Without a true plot or even a thesis to really unify and drive the book, it falls far short of ever becoming a page turner. However, it was entertaining enough that I never dreaded picking it up again. I just had to "push through" a few parts.
The other problem is that Bryson's prosy, conversational style feels a little inexact at times. This is a non-fiction book, but there are several places where it feels like he is taking just a hair of poetic license that overstate facts. One small example is that he claims colonial America lacked a domestic supply of building materials except wood. He cites the fact that George Washington had to order flagstones from England. While it may be true that George Washington ordered his flagstones from England, that does not necessarily imply that there were no stones suitable to this purpose in America as the author implies. In fact, Washington ordered essentially everything from England because it was required by the fashion of his society (as the author actually explicitly discusses this in another part of the book). Also, whether or not a flagstone quarry existed in America at the time is a far cry from demonstrating whether or not America had an ample supply of stone suitable for building. Maybe others would think that I am reading too much into this particular illustration, and I admit I may be. However, I had a suspicious sense that Bryson was overstating the facts in a few places through the book. That is a shame because in many areas with which I was independently familiar with the facts, he does them justice, but it only takes a few questionable assertions to cast doubt on all of them.